‘Rights': Patent Infringement Issues In Nigeria

Introduction

An invention is not the same thing as a discovery. Indeed when Volts discovered the effect of an electric current from the battery on a frog's leg, he made a great discovery, but not a patentable invention. The question may be asked whether principles and discoveries of a scientific nature are inventions. The answer is in the negative. Section 1(5) Patents and Designs Act (PDA)¹ specifically excludes such discoveries or findings from been qualified as an invention under the Act as they are not inventions.

This distinction was also analysed by the English Court in the UK case of Reynolds v. Herbert Smith & Co. Ltd (Buckley J), thus:

''Discovery adds to the amount of human knowledge, but not merely by disclosing something. Invention necessarily involves also the suggestion of an act to be done, and it must be an act which results in a new process, or a new combination for producing an old product or an old result.²