Patentability
An invention is patentable if it meets the legal material requirements for the grant of a patent . These requirements are regulated in national patent laws or in supranational patent agreements.
Requirements for patentability
The German Patent Act and the European Patent Convention (EPC) are cited as examples . Corresponding legal instruments, which can make individually differing regulations on patentability, can be found in or for almost all countries in the world. There are also a number of supranational agreements on the granting of patents, such as the Eurasian Patent Convention administered by the Eurasian Patent Organization .
The §§ 1 to 5 of the Patent Law shall determine the terms of patentability.
The European Patent Convention defines the requirements for patentability in Articles 52 to 57 under “Patentability”. For a European patent to be granted, the following substantive legal requirements must be met at the same time:
- It must be an invention within the meaning of the EPC, so there must not be an invention exclusion under Article 52 paragraphs 2 and 3 EPC.
- The invention must have a technical character , EPC Article 52 paragraph 1.
- There must be no statutory ban on patenting the invention, EPC Article 53.
- The invention must be new , EPC Article 54 and Article 55.
- The invention must involve an inventive step , EPC Article 56.
- The invention must be industrially applicable, EPC Article 57.
Laws and Conventions
- Text of the Patent Act (Germany)
- European Patent Convention , accessed January 31, 2016.
Concept formation and synonyma
Regardless of the commonly active word component "-ability", the "patentability" relates to a quality of an invention for which a patent is pending, which must exist in order for the statutory patent requirement to be applicable and to be applied. The terms patentability and - more rarely - patentability are generally used synonymously with patentability.
