Apple Inc.

Apple Inc. sought to have its patent application deemed accepted by the Australian Patent Office. The application was objected to by the examiner on the grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step. Apple Inc. sought to have the objections withdrawn. The court was required to determine whether the claims in Apple Inc.'s patent application were novel and involved an inventive step in light of the prior art. The court considered the relevant prior art documents and the proposed amendments to the application. The court was satisfied that the proposed amendments were allowable. However, the court was unable to be satisfied that the invention as presently claimed was inventive in light of the prior art. The court concluded that while the invention was novel, it did not involve an inventive step. The court allowed the application to continue to be examined within a period of six months.

[45] See, eg. Micro Motion, Inc. [2017] APO 39 at [53]; Kineta, Inc. [2017] APO 45 at [48]-[49]; Google LLC [2018] APO 44 at [57]; Apple Inc. [2018] APO 54 at [78].