Key points This decision was issued in October 2023 after a five-year appeal procedure (but with a separate decision on a partiality objection). The grant was in 2014. The PCT filing date is in 2008. A petition for review is pending. The first oral proceedings took place on 5 July 2022. The Board concluded that claim 1 was obvious over D10. The oral proceedings were adjourned to 14 July 2022, as vico, with the consent of the parties.  The appellant/proprietor withdrew his consent on 8 July. Oral proceedings were resumed on 21 October 2022 after a new summons.  The Board refused to r ..read more

Key points Three interlocutory decisions on partiality were issued in September 2023 in this opposition appeal case, where the opponent has, up to now, filed five partiality objections.  The decisions are anonymised, but the application number is easy to find and the file is public (some letters are redacted).  The appeal was filed in November 2015, the statement of grounds was in January 2016, and the reply was filed in May 2016, followed by the silence of the Board until April 2019: summons for oral proceedings to be held on 20 March 2020 (bad luck).  Oral proceedings were po ..read more

Key points The opponent appeals. " the appellant formulated an objection against the then pending main request starting from document D1 as the closest prior art. The proprietor argued that this objection should not be admitted because the only document cited as closest prior art in the appealed decision was D5, so this objection was not part of the appealed decision under Article 12(2) RPBA. "The Board however notes that document D1 was extensively discussed both under novelty and under inventive step in the first instance proceedings. " "It is apparent from the contested decision and the mi ..read more

Key points An application is refused because a deficiency in the drawings was not corrected in time in reply to a communication of 24.08.2021 under R.58, setting a two-month time limit.   "On 15 December 2021, the appellant (applicant) submitted ten pages with the corrected ten drawings". "By decision of 21 December 2021 (which was handed over to the EPO postal service on 14 December 2021), the Receiving Section refused the application pursuant to Article 90(5) EPC because the deficiencies had not been corrected in due time."  As a comment, I think a fair and reasonable appl ..read more

Key points The decision in this appeal against a refusal was taken rather fast: statement of grounds filed 08.02.2023 (by a professional representative), oral proceedings held 27.10.2023. The applicant is a natural person (and a patent attorney). Claim 1 in machine translation: "Method for positioning an art object (1) on a flowing body of water, wherein the art object (1) comprises two or more buoyant elements (3, 3 '), and at least one of the elements (3) is anchored at a position defined in the direction of flow and the other elements (3') are either also anchored or connected to one eleme ..read more

This blog will run in unsupervised mode for the next few weeks and only with pre-scheduled posts.  The follow.it email notifications will be sent out automatically as well.   Comments can be posted, but it may take some time before I approve them.  ..read more

Key points "The Enlarged Board of Appeal stated in G 1/04 (Conclusion 1) that to be excluded from patentability [under the diagnostmic method prong of Art. 53(c)] the claim is to include the features relating to: (i) the diagnosis for curative purposes stricto sensu representing the deductive medical or veterinary decision phase as a purely intellectual exercise, (ii) the preceding steps which are constitutive for making that diagnosis, and (iii) the specific interactions with the human or animal body which occur when carrying those out among these preceding steps which are of a technic ..read more

Key points This decision provides an important refinement of the problem-solution approach, especially for the case of problem inventions.  Claim 1 is directed to a chewing gum comprising a base and "a blend of granules consisting of erythritol" The claimed chewing gum differs from that disclosed in  D2 [the closes prior art] [...] in that: 1) the blend of erythritol granules comprises 50 to 99 wt% of coarse granules which are retained on a sieve of 250 microns" and in that the amount of erythritol granules is at least 20 wt.% " The [proprietor] respondent argued that chewing ..read more

Key points New grounds of opposition can only be admitted in appeal with the consent of the proprietor. What if the OD held a ground of opposition inadmissible? " Appellant 2 argued, for the first time, five days before the oral proceedings before the opposition division (with letter dated 2 July 2021), that claim 1 defined, after the amendment, a cam with [certain features]". "The opposition division noted that the grounds according to Article 100(c) EPC had not been raised before and that therefore the above objection introduced a fresh ground of opposition. Having found that the above ..read more

Key points The decision was taken on 10.10.20213 and issued in writing on 28.03.2024. The public online file shows no items between 13.10.2024  2023(the minutes) and 28.03.2024 (the decision) as of the date of writing (02.04.2024). Hence, no Communication to the parties under Art. 15(9) RPB (to be issued at the end of the three-month period, i.e. by 10.01.2024) is visible. Was the President of the Boards informed (as is required under amended Art. 15(9), which entered into force on 01.01.01.2024)?   Note, possibly the delay was for good reason in the case. And possibly t ..read more