The evolution of sufficiency in common law

The requirement of disclosure in the patent specification is commonly presented as an essential arm of the patent bargain. This paper tests the assumption that disclosure requirements in a number of common law jurisdictions continue to reflect this and other shared origins of this doctrine. Instead we see forces such as Europeanisation and sector-specificity produce divergence and confusion over the purpose of sufficiency, particularly in the context of adjacent patentability criteria such as utility and nonobviousness. The result is a complex expression of this requirement that has eroded the normative strength of this doctrine as originally expressed in Liardet v Johnson.