The Patent Registrar refused an application to register a patent that dealt with a new physical theory in the field of relativity and quantum mechanics.
The Court held that the theory cannot be registered as a patent. An invention eligible for registration as a patent is a product or process in any technological field that is new, useful, can be used industrially and includes an inventive progress. An idea, an application that does not reach the level of a product, an invention which is predominantly calculations or a thought process, are not eligible for registration as a patent. Additionally, the patent application must include a physical implementation that can be manufactured as well as all the data that will allow the execution of the invention by professionals without them being required to take an inventive step or add their own touch in order to bring the patent into execution. Here, the application included a theory or physical model which does not amount to a finished product or process and consists predominantly of mathematical calculations. While the application for registering a patent contended that any physicist could design experiments that would prove the theory included in the application, it does not provide the data required to carry out the invention into a product and therefore the theory cannot be considered an invention eligible for registration as a patent.