The “veronica bucket” and the inventive step requirement under the patent law of Ghana

Abstract

The Veronica bucket, a hand washing mechanism consisting of a bucket with a tap fixed at the bottom, mounted at hand height, with a bowl at the bottom to collect wastewater has played a pivotal role in the fight against the Covid-19 pandemic through the promotion of good hand washing habits. The popularity of the Veronica bucket led its Ghanaian inventor in an interview on a radio station in Accra, Ghana in March 2021 to express her regrets for failing to obtain a patent for her product. Her statement, which dominated the headlines of major social media platforms and generated public discussion demonstrates the misconception about the grant of a patent. This paper adopts the doctrinal legal research methodology in an attempt to analyse the requirements for the grant of a patent under Ghanaian law, particularly the inventive step requirement to ascertain whether the Veronica bucket is indeed patentable under Ghanaian law. The paper argues, after a careful analysis of the patentability requirements under Ghanaian law that, even though the Veronica bucket is industrially applicable, it would have failed to meet the inventive step requirement to warrant the grant of a patent. The paper further argues that even if a search was to be conducted to reveal that the invention underpinning the Veronica bucket was new at the material time, such an invention would instead entitle its inventor to a Utility Model Certificate under Ghanaian law, which only requires the product concerned to be new and industrially applicable.