“ I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention.doc

Canadian Patent Law Chapter 7 - obviousness ? 2006-2007 Donald M. CameronOgilvy Renault LLP  Necessity is the mother of invention. Jonathan Swift Necessity may be the mother of invention, but play is certainly the father. Roger von Oech “I don’t think necessity is the mother of invention – invention, in my opinion, arises directly from idleness, possibly also from laziness. To save oneself trouble.” Agatha Christie table of contents 1. obviousness 1 1.1 Introduction 1 (a) Proper Subject Matter 3 (b) The inventive step 3 (c) The path 4 (d) The creator’s mind 5 a question of fact 5 1.2 The Cripps Question 6 (a) The Notional Skilled Worker 6 (b) Having Common General Knowledge and the Prior Art 7 mosaicing 8 (c) The Knowledge the Worker Possesses 9 common general knowledge 9 public knowledge 10 can’t focus on selected prior art in isolation 10 accessibility 10 paper patents are viewed with skepticism 11 (d) Motivation 12 (e) At the Date of Invention 12 first to invent system 12 first to file system 13 (f) Led Directly and Without Difficulty to the Solution 13 (g) The U.K. “Worth a try” test 13 The “worth a try” test is not the test for obviousness in Canada 15 The “obvious to try” test is also not the test in the U.S.A. 18 (h) experimentation 19 If research or experimentation was needed, the invention was not obvious 19 Cases quoting and following Lederman in Bayer v. Apotex 23 SmithKline Beecham Pharma Inc. v. Apotex Inc. 23 Baker Petrolite Corp. et al v. Canwell Enviro-Industries Ltd. et al 24 671905 Alberta Inc. et al v. Q’Max Solutions Inc. 24 Novartis AG v. Apotex Inc. 25 Pfizer Canada v. Apotex Inc. 25 Bayer v. Apotex 26 AB Hassle v. Genpharm Inc. 26 Procter Gamble Pharmaceuticals Canada Inc. v. Canada (Minister of Health) 29 Janssen-Ortho v. Novopharm: levofloxacin #1 (the NOC case) 33 Confirmatory experiments are obvious 35 If trial and error are required, it can’t be obvious 38 Undue experimentation means it is not obvious 39 Following an obvious and w