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Patent utility requires one practical use, not fulfillment of every stated promise.
The Court allowed AstraZeneca’s appeal and held the patent ‘promise doctrine’ is not the correct approach to utility under s. 2 of the Patent Act.
It found the doctrine improperly imports disclosure obligations into the utility requirement and wrongly invalidates patents when one of multiple promised uses is unproven.
The correct test asks whether the claimed subject-matter has at least one practical use related to that subject-matter, demonstrated or soundly predicted at filing.
Applying that test, the ‘653 patent had sufficient utility and was not invalid.
