Commissioner of Patents v Microcell Ltd

The Commissioner of Patents appealed to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Supreme Court of Victoria, which had overturned the Commissioner's refusal to grant a patent to Microcell Ltd. The dispute concerned the patentability of an invention relating to a method of producing a porous rubber material.

The central legal issue before the High Court was whether the invention, as described in Microcell's patent application, constituted a manner of manufacture within the meaning of section 6 of the Statute of Monopolies. This required the court to consider whether the claimed process was a practical application of scientific discovery or principle, leading to a vendible product or an improvement in a vendible product.

The High Court, in a joint judgment, held that the invention was not a manner of manufacture. Their Honours reasoned that while the process involved a chemical reaction and resulted in a physical change, it did not amount to a new or improved method of producing a vendible product in the sense required by patent law. The court distinguished the present case from prior authorities where inventions involving chemical processes were considered patentable, emphasizing that the claimed process was merely a discovery of a natural phenomenon or a scientific principle without sufficient practical application to be considered a manner of manufacture. The court found that the application described a process that was too abstract and did not sufficiently define a practical method for producing a tangible result.

The appeal was allowed, and the order of the Supreme Court of Victoria was set aside. The Commissioner of Patents' refusal to grant the patent was upheld.