In case of parallel proceedings before a national court and the Boards of Appeal, parties should inform both tribunals of this position as early as possible. In order to avoid duplication of proceedings, the parties should ask the appropriate tribunal for acceleration. Whether acceleration is requested by one party, or both or all parties in…
This decision of the Board of Appeal covers two questions of interest: 1) May an Opposition Division include an obiter dictum in its decision? (The answer in this case is yes.) 2) To what extent is amendment in the background section of the description allowed in a divisional application? A full summary of this case…
The appellant in this case filed a statement of grounds against the decision of the examining division to refuse a patent application. For the main request this statement only stated that it was believed that the application met the requirements of the European Patent Convention and maintained the arguments presented in the examination procedure. For…
A claim violates Article 123(2) EPC when an added claim term has two reasonable interpretations, one of which violates article 123(2) EPC. An amendment selecting the interpretation that does not violate Article 123(2) is not allowed during opposition because of Article 123(3) EPC. In the view of the Board the proprietor should not be able…
1. According to the EPC, the right to object to a member of a Board of Appeal or of the Enlarged Board of Appeal is reserved to the party to the proceedings who suspects partiality in such a member. 2. It remains nevertheless that pursuant to Article 4(1) RPEBA, if the Enlarged Board of Appeal…
Following decision G 1/03, the Board concluded that a disclaimer that is used to remove subject-matter falling under the prohibition of Article 53(a) EPC in combination with Rule 28(c) EPC, is allowable. The full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
The Examining Division had refused a patent application for a method and system of processing a payment card transaction. Before the Board of Appeal, the applicant requested suspension of the proceedings to await the opinion of the Enlarged Board of Appeal in G 3/08. The Board of Appeal refused to grant the requested suspension, because…
The Board of Appeal decided that the following applies as regards to sufficiency of disclosure: (1) the skilled person should be able to realise without undue burden substantially any embodiment falling in the ambit of a claim on the basis of the disclosure and/or common general knowledge; (2) the objection of lack of sufficient disclosure…
The selection of explicitly disclosed borderline values defining several (sub)ranges, in order to form a new (narrower) subrange, is not contestable under Article 123 (2) EPC when the ranges belong to the same list. However, the combination of an individual range from this list with another individual range from a second list that relates to…
In the case at hand, Olympus filed a petition for review against the decision of the Board of Appeal to revoke Olympus’ patent. Olympus argued that it had had no opportunity to comment on the grounds for this decision as it had never received the statement of the grounds of appeal and the invitation to…
