The results of the EPO’s online user consultation on a procedural option for postponing examination of a European patent application have now been published and are available here (pdf). To cut a long story short, users’ opinions are quite divided. The overall result is surprisingly similar to the result of the Brexit referendum (52% in…
Not much time for blogging today, but yet another referral to the Enlarged Board may deserve our attention. TBA 3.5.03 referred the following questions to the Enlarged Board, of which question 3 may have the greatest Impact: 1. Ist im Beschwerdeverfahren das Recht auf Durchführung einer mündlichen Verhandlung gemäß Artikel 116 EPÜ eingeschränkt, wenn die…
A few days ago, our Kluwer News Blogger reported on a decision in the Netherlands, holding two Dutch patents for processing the Ethiopian grain “teff” as null and void. While this decision certainly has a political dimension, which formed the focus of the reports in the general press and the report from the Norwegian Fridtjof…
If a patent only provides the skilled person with a general scientific explanation as to why the procedure disclosed therein is suitable for the purpose in question and does not disclose a new technical teaching in relation to this purpose, but merely a discovery of biological correlations, then this is insufficient to acknowledge novelty (continuation…
The EPO’s Problem-Solution-Approach is, on the face of it, simple and widely applied also in the national jurisprudence of the EPC member states. It starts with the determination of a “closest prior art document” (CPAD) which is to serve as the starting point of the further analysis. It is then evaluated which technical differences exist…
The much awaited decision T 1063/18 by Technical Board of Appeal 3.3.04 in a five-member composition has been published today. The patent application under appeal related to new pepper plants and fruits with improved nutritional value, and the decision did indeed turn out to be quite peppery, at least in regard to the EPO Administrative…
The provision of a crystal form of a polymorphic substance, which the skilled person inevitably obtains if he uses a process suggested by the state of the art for the production of the substance, represents the result of activities to be expected by a skilled person and does not therefore by itself involve an inventive…
by Adam Lacy and Thorsten Bausch As European patent professionals are all too aware, the Boards of Appeal of the EPO (BOA) have a huge amount of power, particularly over the rights of patentees. In EPO opposition proceedings, the BOA have the final say on whether to revoke a patent across all of the EPC…
Looking back at this blog in 2018 from a bird’s eye perspective, I cannot resist the feeling that one of the most popular topics has been musing about the UPC’s future and speculating about the timing and the outcome of the decision by the Bundesverfassungsgericht (BVerfG) on Dr. Stjerna’s constitutional complaint. Even Stjerna himself has…
Setting the record straight concerning the right to dependent claims under the EPC by Thomas Wyder and Stephan Steinmüller (Hoffmann Eitle) EPO Examiners sometimes urge Applicants to delete dependent claims considered to relate to “unsearched subject-matter” after having raised a unity a posteriori objection. We are investigating in how far the EPC justifies forcing an…
