The board addressed the public availability of publications on the internet, holding that direct and unambiguous access of a document should be possible in order to become state of the art. A mere…
The board clarified the non-public status of e-mail correspondence. The opponent asserted an e-mail from a third party to the opponent as part of the state of the art. It was not in dispute that both…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) allowed review of the conduct of the Technical Board of Appeal (TBA), since the TBA rejected a main request for lack of inventive step which had not yet been…
The Enlarged Board confirmed that a Technical Board of Appeal may refuse a request that is filed with the grounds of opposition if – upon request by the opposition division – the applicant has…
A method claim comprising a step of "providing a donor flow channel for conveying fluid to and from a donor" was found to be excluded from patentability as treatment by surgery and therapy. The Board…
Faced with a claim directed at a method for determining airway pressure levels, the Board isolated a step from the claim that required changing the airway pressure of an artificial ventilator to…
The board refused to find a set of claims filed with the grounds of appeal admissible, because it concluded from the circumstances that the proprietor had deliberately refused to file these claims…
The patent concerned claims a method of cooling animals characterized in that the animals are cooled in a milking stall so that the animals go to the milking stall spontaneously. The patentee added a…
The Enlarged Board of Appeal answered the question referred to it by the Board of Appeal in J 2/08.
The Enlarged Board of Appeal held that after a decision to refuse a European patent application,…