EPO

I reported last year on the three-part article series published in EPI Information by Tamaris Bucher, Principal Patent Attorney at Novartis, on the EPO’s approach to assessing inventive step for…

EPO practice on added matter is well known to be strict, with many patents being revoked using this principle every year. Particularly tricky during EPO opposition proceedings is the “inescapable…

In patent law, the concept of “prior art” or “state of the art” describes the universe of information which existed and was made available to the public by means of a written or oral description, by…

T 1913/21 has received attention for nicely illustrating the difference between process claims and second non-medical use claims —a category of claims shaped by landmark Enlarged Board decisions G 2…

In less than 15 days, the Enlarged Board of Appeals (“EBA”) handed down two major decisions in relation to patent validity: (i) one relating to claim construction when assessing the patentability of…

As discussed at length here, in T 56/21 3.3.04 came close to referring this issue to the Enlarged Board before getting cold feet. 3.3.02 have now taken up the gauntlet in T 697/22 and referred the…

 G 1/24 has now been issued, and concludes “The description and any drawings are always referred to when interpreting the claims, and not just in the case of unclarity or ambiguity.” With this simple…

Defining antibodies by functional features is not always straightforward at the EPO. T326/22 is a nice example of how this can be achieved.       To briefly recap the standard EPO approach, an…

One of the most highly debated issues at the UPC before its commencement was the question, how the UPC would deal with validity of patents – would it essentially take over the EPO’s course? Or would…