Manner of manufacture
Patent Protection

Although no longer the law in the UK, in order for an invention to be patentable (up until 1949) an invention was required to amount to a 'manner of manufacture'. This qualification has shaped the law that is now codified in s 1(1): Patents Act 1977.

The requirement stemmed from section 6 of the Statute of Monopolies 1623, which rendered void all monopolies at common law, dispensations in the following terms:

"Provided also (and be it declared and enacted) that any declaration before mentioned shall not extend to any letters patent and grants of privilege for the term of 14 years or under, hereafter to be made of, of the sole working or making of any manner of new manufacture within the realm, to the true and first inventor and such inventors of such manufactures which others at the time of making such letters patent and grants shall not use, so as also they be not contrary to the law or mischievous to the state, by raising prices of commodities at home, or hurt of trade, or generally inconvenient"

The effect of the Statute of Monopolies was that discoveries, bare principles, presentations of information, schemes and plans, and methods of testing were not patentable under the old law, and this remains the case under the 1977 Act under the statutory criterion set out in s 1(1).