The Workshop Improvement Standard

1A workshop improvement is a normal development of an existing manner of manufacture which does not involve anything novel to be outside the probable capacity of a person skilled in the art. To qualify as a patentable invention, an improvement on something known before or a combination of different matters already known should be something more than a mere workshop improvement, and must independently satisfy the test of invention. For an improvement to be patentable, it must yield a new result, a new article or a better or cheaper article than before. It is possible for a combination of old, known integers to be combined in such a manner that by their working they produce a new process or improved result. The Supreme Court has held that the mere collection of more than one integers or things, not involving the exercise of any inventive faculty, does not qualify for the grant of a patent. (Bishwanath Prasad Radhey Shyam v Hindustan Metal Industries (1978) (para 21).) But the case laws on the point do not give a clear picture as to what distinguishes a workshop improvement from a patentable improvement. (See Technograph Printed Circuits Ltd v Mills & Rockley Ltd (1972) RPC 346, p 355, [1971] FSR 188; Joseph Lucas (Batteries) Ltd v Gaedor Ltd (1978) RPC 297.)

2In Bishwanath Prasad Radhey Shyam v Hindustan Metal Industries (1978) (para 50) the Supreme Court held that the machine involved in the case “is merely an application of an old invention, known for decades before 1951, for the traditional purpose of scraping and turning utensils, with a slight change in the mode of application, which is no more than a workshop improvement.”

3In Shining Industries v Shri Krishna Industries (1974) the Allahabad High Court set out from Hotchkiss v. Greenwood that “the improvement is the work of the skillful mechanic, not that of the inventor” (para 21), and held that the new lock’s grooves and housing “does not bring about any new change in the lock. The system remains the same.” (para 33)