ABSTRACT
Patents are granted for inventions, but only those inventions which satisfy the statutory criteria of patentability. Section 1(1) of the Patents Act (PA) 1977 sets out four conditions that must be satisfied before an invention can be said to be patentable:
(a) that the invention is new;
(b) that it involves an inventive step;
(c) that it is capable of industrial application; and
(d) that it does not fall into one of the categories of excluded invention in s 1(2) and (3) of the PA 1977.
