PA 4 - Industrial Application; PA 4A - Methods of treatment or diagnosis

Question 1

What is Industrial Applicability (S4)

Answer 1

An invention shall be taken to be CAPABLE of industrial application if it can be made or used in any kind of industry, including agriculture

Question 2

What does industrial mean?

Answer 2

industrial is “physical activity of technical character belonging to useful or practical arts” (EPO)

Question 3

What are the Medical exclusions (S4A)

Answer 3

1) A patent shall NOT be granted for:
a) A METHOD OF TREATMENT OF the HUMAN or ANIMAL body by SURGERY or THERAPY
b) A METHOD OF DIAGNOSIS practised ON the HUMAN or ANIMAL body

Question 4

What medical things are allowed

Answer 4

2) Substances or compositions for use in such (medical) methods

i.e. substances for use during surgery

Surgical and other medical equipment is also generally patentable

Question 5

What makes medical things new

Answer 5

3) a substance or composition even if the substance or composition is known in the art, if the method does not form state of the art (1st medical use)
4) if the specific use is new (2nd medical use)

Question 6

What treatments are not excluded by S4A

Answer 6

methods/treatments etc on human/animal tissue separate from the body, which won’t go back in.
(dialysis is not patentable, but blood tests are)
PURELY cosmetic treatments as they are not therapeutic, but incidental or potential therapeutic effects mitigate this.
A treatment with a step in anyway involving a physician will make it excluded

Question 7

What defines surgery

Answer 7

a “substantial physical intervention”,
i.e. something that would require professional skill and carry a potential risk
NOT necessarily something invasive

includes both therapeutic and non-therapeutic/ cosmetic surgery

Question 8

What is “by therapy”

Answer 8

can be corrective and/or preventative to a symptom or underlying cause
But it assumes relief of a medical condition

Question 9

How do you claim S4A 3) or 4) medical substances

Answer 9

1st use:
Substance X for use in therapy
Substance X for use as a medicament

2nd use:
Substance X for use in the treatment of condition Y (when X is known for treating things other than Y)

Where X is the active ingredient