Industrial applicability

Industrial applicability is a patentability requirement ensuring that an invention has a practical technical use. The invention must be capable of being made or used in an industry in a broad sense, including manufacturing, agriculture and other technical activities. It excludes purely speculative ideas without a credible practical application. In Swiss and European patent practice, this requirement is usually less contested than novelty or inventive step, but it matters for inventions whose function, utility or reproducibility is unclear, especially in biotechnology and emerging technologies.