Health World Ltd v Shin-Sun Australia Pty Ltd

Health World Ltd (the appellant) appealed to the High Court of Australia from a decision of the Full Court of the Federal Court of Australia, which had affirmed a judgment of a single judge of that court. The dispute concerned the validity and infringement of a patent held by Shin-Sun Australia Pty Ltd (the respondent) for a method of producing a probiotic supplement. The appellant had challenged the patent on grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step, and also alleged that its own product did not infringe the patent.

The High Court was required to determine whether the patent was valid, specifically addressing whether the claimed invention possessed the necessary novelty and inventive step over the prior art. Further, the court had to consider whether the appellant's product, which involved a different fermentation process, infringed the respondent's patent claims.

The High Court, in a joint judgment, found that the patent was invalid for lack of inventive step. Their Honours reasoned that the prior art disclosed a method that was sufficiently similar to the claimed invention, such that the differences would have been obvious to a person skilled in the art at the time of the patent application. Consequently, the court held that the patent was not infringed, as there was no valid patent to infringe. The appeal was allowed, and the orders of the Federal Court were set aside.