Inventive step

One of the key questions in the assessment of inventive step within the EPO is whether or not the skilled person will adapt or modify the teaching of the closest prior art and arrive at the invention…

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…

The Supreme Court held that the Court of Appeal was entitled to treat the judge's failure to appreciate the logical consequence of a particular finding as an error of principle which allowed an…

A claim to a device will be denied patentability under Art. 53(c) EPC if it can only be produced through the exercise of a surgical method step. A European patent was granted for a device for the…

The case at hand concerned an application by Pfizer for Arrow-declarations in relation to its proposed launch of its bevacizumab product (it will be branded “Zirabev”) for the treatment of various…

Although at first instance the patent was found to lack inventive step without using the problem-and-solution approach, the use of the PSA by the Court of Appeal did not make a difference to the…

A further interesting decision handed down by the Judges of the English Patents Court prior to the Easter break was a judgment from Nugee J concerning proceedings between E. Mishan and Hozelock…

Last week the Board of Appeal issued a decision holding that Google’s patent application 04784004.6 was unallowable on the ground of lack of inventive step. Amongst other things, the decision…

The UK Supreme Court today handed down its decision in Actavis v ICOS. The decision was unanimous, with Lord Hodge giving the only judgment. The case concerns two principal questions. First, how…