D. Inventive step
  1. Home
  2. Legal texts
  3. Case Law of the Boards of Appeal
  4. Case Law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
  5. I. Patentability
  6. D. Inventive step
  7. 8. Skilled person
Print
Facebook Twitter Linkedin Email

8. Skilled person

Overview

8. Skilled person

You are viewing the 9th edition (2019) of this publication; for the 10th edition (2022) see here

8.1. Definition of the skilled person
8.2. Neighbouring field
8.3. Skilled person – level of knowledge
8.4. Everyday items from a different technical field
New decisions
T 2058/18

the (technically) skilled person might be considered a multilingual person but not normally a linguist (Reasons 3.13.7).

T 1450/16

In the application of the problem-solution approach for the assessment of inventive step, the person skilled in the art within the meaning of Article 56 EPC enters the stage only when the objective technical problem has been formulated in view of the selected "closest prior art". Only then can the notional skilled person's relevant technical field and its extent be appropriately defined. Therefore, it cannot be the "skilled person " who selects the closest prior art in the first step of the problem-solution approach. Rather, this selection is to be made by the relevant deciding body, on the basis of the established criteria, in order to avoid any hindsight analysis (see point 2.1.4 of the Reasons).

T 984/15

As to the definition of the skilled person for the assessment of inventive step and the interpretation of technical specifications (such as telecommunications standards): see points 2.2 and 2.7 of the Reasons.

OJ Supplementary Publications
Case law 2020

In T 1601/15 the board held that the skilled person did not need prompting to apply their knowledge. It was not convinced by the argument that the skilled person would have had no reason to draw upon it. The skilled person did not need a reason to apply their knowledge. This knowledge formed, as it were, the technical background for any activities they performed and fed into all their decisions. In this regard, a distinction had to be made between the common general knowledge in the art and the teaching of specialist documents. In the case at issue, the solution to the problem would have been obvious to the skilled person in light of their knowledge, as evidenced in particular by document D15.

Previous
Next
Footer - Service & support
  • Service & support
    • Website updates
    • Availability of online services
    • FAQ
    • Publications
    • Procedural communications
    • Contact us
    • Subscription centre
    • Official holidays
    • Glossary
Footer - More links
  • Jobs & careers
  • Press centre
  • Single Access Portal
  • Procurement
  • Boards of Appeal
Facebook
European Patent Office
EPO Jobs
Instagram
EuropeanPatentOffice
Linkedin
European Patent Office
EPO Jobs
EPO Procurement
X (formerly Twitter)
EPOorg
EPOjobs
Youtube
TheEPO
Footer
  • Legal notice
  • Terms of use
  • Data protection and privacy
  • Accessibility