Patents
[No. 40 of 2016
17. Despite section fifteen, a patent shall not be granted for
any of the following inventions and the invention shall be excluded
from being protected as specified in section fifteen (2):
(a) methods of treatment of the human or animal body by
surgery or therapy, as wellas diagnostic methods, except
in relation to products for use in any of these methods;
(b) plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes
for the production of plants or animals other than non
biological and microbiological processes and the products
of such processes;
(c) DNA, including complementary DNA sequences, cells,
cell lines and cell cultures and seeds;
(d) the whole or part of natural living beings and biological
materials found in nature, even if isolated or purified,
including the genome or germplasm of any natural living
being;
(e) new uses of a known product, including the second use of
a medicine;
(f) juxtaposition of known inventions or mixtures of known
products or alteration of the use, form, dimensions or
materials, except where in reality they are so combined
or merged that they cannot function separately or where
their characteristic qualities or functions have been so
modified as to produce an industrial result or use not
obvious to a person skilled in the art;
809
Exclusions
from
patentability
(g) inventions which contravene or are inconsistent with public
order, public morality, principles of humanity and
environmental conservation;
(h) public health related methods of use or uses of any
molecule or other substance, whatsoever used, for the
prevention or treatment of any disease which the
Minister responsible for health may designate as a serious
health hazard or as a life threatening disease;
(i) an invention which is frivolous or claims anything obvious
or contrary to well established natural laws; or
(j) an invention which is traditional knowledge or is an
aggregation or duplication of traditional knowledge.
18. (1) An invention shall be considered new if it does not
form part of the state of the art immediately before the priority
date.
Novelty