EPO Decision

The inventor designated in a European patent has to be a human being and not a machine. That is the core message of two recent EPO refusals of patent applications in which an AI system was designated…

This decision is certainly worth reading if you deal with inventive step objections of the form “abstract algorithm implemented on a generic computer” or the like. The Board of Appeal provides a…

One of the worst nightmares or, in a few cases, real events in a patent professional’s life is when he/she realizes that an important term has inadvertently been missed and the usual means of term…

Late in 2018, Board 3.5.07 issued two decisions on appeals from Examining Division decisions, in which the length of the examination procedure was excessive.  The Board decided that such delays can…

Today, in the decision T 0489/14 the EPO’s Boards of Appeal published their referral of three questions relating to computer implemented simulations to the Enlarged Board of Appeal. Referrals to the…

The EPO’s Problem-Solution-Approach is, on the face of it, simple and widely applied also in the national jurisprudence of the EPC member states. It starts with the determination of a “closest prior…

This recent decision from an EPO Board of Appeal is a rather satisfying development in how patentability (especially novelty) of purity claims is assessed at the EPO.  This case may be seen as…

The European Patent Office ‘will consider possible next actions’ together with the EPO Member States after a high-profile decision of a Board of Appeal earlier this week, concerning the patentability…

Plants which are produced according to essentially biological processes need to be held patentable, despite EPO Guidelines which were introduced in 2017 to exclude them from patentability. The EPO…