Patents [No. 40 of 2016 17. Despite section fifteen, a patent shall not be granted for any of the following inventions and the invention shall be excluded from being protected as specified in section fifteen (2): (a) methods of treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or therapy, as wellas diagnostic methods, except in relation to products for use in any of these methods; (b) plant or animal varieties or essentially biological processes for the production of plants or animals other than non biological and microbiological processes and the products of such processes; (c) DNA, including complementary DNA sequences, cells, cell lines and cell cultures and seeds; (d) the whole or part of natural living beings and biological materials found in nature, even if isolated or purified, including the genome or germplasm of any natural living being; (e) new uses of a known product, including the second use of a medicine; (f) juxtaposition of known inventions or mixtures of known products or alteration of the use, form, dimensions or materials, except where in reality they are so combined or merged that they cannot function separately or where their characteristic qualities or functions have been so modified as to produce an industrial result or use not obvious to a person skilled in the art; 809 Exclusions from patentability (g) inventions which contravene or are inconsistent with public order, public morality, principles of humanity and environmental conservation; (h) public health related methods of use or uses of any molecule or other substance, whatsoever used, for the prevention or treatment of any disease which the Minister responsible for health may designate as a serious health hazard or as a life threatening disease; (i) an invention which is frivolous or claims anything obvious or contrary to well established natural laws; or (j) an invention which is traditional knowledge or is an aggregation or duplication of traditional knowledge. 18. (1) An invention shall be considered new if it does not form part of the state of the art immediately before the priority date. Novelty