Article 123(3) EPC stipulates that a European patent may not be amended in such a way as to extend the protection it confers. A special case of extension of the protective scope may occur in claims which define both the type of and the amount of a specific component. An issue addressed in a series…
In an appeal against a decision by the Opposition Division to maintain the patent in amended form, the Board ordered the representative of the opponent to file an authorization. The representative did not do so in due time, but indicated that the opponent would take no further action. The Board held that the legal fiction…
On 5 December 2012, the Civil Chamber of the Supreme Court handed down an interesting judgment confirming that the non-discrimination principle enshrined in articles 27.1 and 70 of TRIPS trumps any remaining effects of the Reservation filed by the Kingdom of Spain when it adhered to the European Patent Convention (“EPC”) on 10 July 1986….
An applicant for re-establishment of rights who fails to substantiate his request adequately in first-instance proceedings cannot normally remedy that failure by submitting additional evidence with the grounds for appeal. An appellant does not have an absolute right to introduce new evidence with the statement of ground of appeal. Click here for the full text of…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) revoked a decision by the Technical Board of Appeal because it failed to decide on a request to admit an expert report (rule 104b EPC2000). The petition for review was admissible in spite of the fact that the appellant failed to raise an objection during oral proceedings before the…
The Technical Board of Appeal ruled that a claim of an opposed patent was anticipated by the publication of a divisional of that same patent. Because the claim contained an intermediate generalization with respect to the priority document, the claim was not entitled to priority. The divisional was however entitled to claim priority for the…
An invention entailing a talking doll with the ability to send e-mails was held to be unpatentable. The Board of Appeal rejected applicant’s argument that the invention was in the technical field of stuffed animal toys or dolls. There was no contribution in that field because the claim features did not change the toy’s design…
A recent Decision of the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal 3.2.05 found claims of a “mother” patent to lack novelty over the disclosure content of an EPO application that was a daughter (divisional) to the mother patent. In many important jurisdictions, including the USA and Japan, Applicant’s own earlier filed but later published patent filings…
EPO practice on patenting plants knows two exclusions that are defined in Art. 53(b) EPC: the exclusion of “plant varieties”, and the exclusion of “essentially biological processes for the production of plants”. The recent referral G2/12 may change this practice and may lead to the exclusion of plants depending on how they were made. The…
The Board, exercising its power under Article 12(4) RPBA, decided not to admit the patent proprietor’s (appellant) main request in appeal, because he did not at all respond in substance to the opposition in first instance, but had merely stated to be interested in maintaining the patent as granted and that it would not reply…
