The inventive step reflects a general patentability requirement in most patent laws, according to which an invention should be sufficiently inventive (not obvious in view of the prior art using the skilled person’s common general knowledge) in order to be patented / the patent to be held valid. In the United States, rather than ‘inventive step’, the expression ‘non-obviousness’ is used: is the invention an adequate distance beyond or above the state of the art? The assessment of the inventive step varies from one country to another. The European Patent Office uses the so-called problem-and-solution approach to assess inventive step, an instrument also used by several national European courts.
The Federal Patent Court has decided that an inventive step according to Article 56 EPC is not established if the person skilled in the art has only to conduct routine exploratory analysis based on the prior art. Against this legal background the Federal Patent Court nullified the patent in suit arguing that in a situation…
In this case the Court holds that documents and explanations relating to a patent application should be corrected or changed at the request of the Polish Patent Office within a fixed time period and under penalty of discontinuation of the proceedings. A faulty application and non-compliance with such requests may result in the refusal to…
The Board reversed a refusal of the patent application for lack of technical contribution. The underlying decision had expressed the view that the idea of making chance encounters depend on time was a game rule, which is itself excluded from patentability and had been implemented in straightforward manner. In its classical sense game rules form…
In this case the Court confirmed beyond any doubt that the Polish Patent Office is not an administrative body that shall automatically approve patents granted by the European Patent Office. However, the Patent Office may not base its decision solely on its own convictions and the views expressed in the judgment of a British Court…
