| Patent law (patents for inventions) |
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| Sufficiency of disclosure Unity of invention |
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In patent law, industrial applicability or industrial application is a patentability requirement according to which a patent can only be granted for an invention which is susceptible of industrial application, i.e. for an invention which can be made or used in some kind of industry. In this context, the concept of "industry" is far-reaching: it includes agriculture, for instance. An example of invention which would not be susceptible of industrial application is "a method of contraception [...] to be applied in the private and personal sphere of a human being".[1]
In relationship with United States patent law, the utility requirement is a more or less corresponding, but different, requirement.
At the European Patent Office (EPO), the requirement that an invention is susceptible of an industrial application has generally been taken to be more or less automatically fulfilled but a 2005 decision of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO saw this requirement analysed in new detail. In decision T870/04 it was held that the mere fact that a substance can be made in some way does not necessarily mean that the requirements of Article 57 EPC are fulfilled, unless there is also some "profitable use" for which the substance can be employed.[2]
When an alleged invention does not comply with the generally accepted laws of physics, the industrial application requirement is related to the requirement of sufficiency of disclosure, i.e. the fact that a "patent application must disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art".[3][4]
Article 52(4) EPC excludes "methods for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy and diagnostic methods practised on the human or animal body" from patentability, because these methods are regarded as not susceptible of industrial application.[5] The purpose of this exclusion is "to deny patent protection to methods which serve medical purposes, so that no one could be hampered in the practice of medicine by patent legislation." [6]