TNAG-1495-FCO40-2053-Hong-Kong-intellectual-property-regime-1986 — Page 27

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(i.e. something which would not Occur to any

skilled practitioner in the subject) and

therefore a more thorough examination in the

Patent Office. It is this initial examination

which is so time consuming for the applicant

especially if he has an incremental invention

for which it is hard to prove non-obviousness.

It is significant that prior to this the

Johnson Report commented (cmnd 1808, 1962):

"The minority view put to us by the

Chartered Institute of Patent Agents,

the body most qualified to speak on

this subject, was in favour of the

introduction of a utility model system.

The majority view was against it but only

because (our emphasis) the standard of

inventiveness required in practice by

the British Patent System is not high,

with the result that protection is given

to the kind of novel articles the

Gebrauchmuster (i.e. petty patents)

system protects. It was clear that this

view would change if the standard of

inventiveness were to rise to an extent tent

which excluded utility models."

That is precisely what happened to the standard of

inventiveness in the 1977 Patents Act with the result

that the award of a patent, other than for the most

oustanding inventions, became much more difficult.

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