[2] The National Research Development Corporation (NRDC) discovered a new method to apply known chemicals to the soil so as to kill weeds but not the crops.

The issue for the court was to determine if this new process of weed-killing constituted a "manner of manufacture" and could therefore be considered a patentable invention.

The court had to consider whether it is enough that a process produces a useful result or whether it is necessary that some physical thing is either brought into existence or so affected as the better to serve man's purposes.

[8] (iii) The outcome of this new process was only arrived at by scientific ingenuity and research and is considered a vendible product because it created an artificial state of affairs in respect of weeds and crops and achieved an economically useful result.

(iv) Agricultural and horticultural processes are not outside the limits of patentable inventions provided they are not excluded by any other of the "traditional principles" as in the case of NV Philips Gloeilampenfabrieken v Mirabella International Pty Ltd,[9] and the new agricultural and horticultural processes produce a new and useful product.