Zusammenfassung von Article 056 EPC für die Entscheidung T1523/23 vom 13.10.2025

In T 1523/23, the invention concerned a display with reduced colour shift. Regarding feature M1.7 of claim 1 of the main request, the board noted that, for a given display, it was not apparent what the target colour was. Consequently, it was also not apparent whether a colour shift had occurred and whether it was reduced by the choice of the heights of the two uneven-structure-forming regions. The board found this feature attempted to define a technical effect of the manufacturing process in a claim directed to an individual display, which cannot limit the claimed product. The board explained that under the problem-solution approach, a technical effect can only be taken into account if it is achieved by the claimed subject-matter. In the present case a technical effect achieved by the manufacturing process could not be relied upon when assessing inventive step of the display of claim 1. Even if the process produced an ensemble of displays whose standard deviation from the mean (target) colour was reduced, for an individual display neither the target colour nor the deviation or reduction thereof was recognisable. The patent proprietor (respondent) contended that a technical effect need not be directly derivable from the claimed subject-matter, referring to decisions T 648/88 and T 1089/15. Those cases showed that a technical effect achieved by an inventive chemical process may be relied upon when assessing inventive step of a new intermediate product occurring in that process. It was therefore argued that, for a new product with distinguishing features, one could rely on effects of the improved manufacturing process, without requiring the effect to be directly produced by the claimed product. This argument did not persuade the board in substance. The cited decisions concerned inventions in the field of chemistry, where the inventive concept lies in a new and non-obvious reaction pathway whose non-obviousness can "carry over" to intermediate products. The present invention, by contrast, concerns a display device, viz. a physical artefact, as the end product of a manufacturing process, not an intermediate compound in a chemical process. The proprietor had not shown why the relationship between manufacturing method and physical end product was comparable to that between a chemical process and an intermediate product. These relationships are fundamentally different. The board stated that the chemical case law invoked by the proprietor did not establish a general rule that a new (within the meaning of Art. 54 EPC) product made by an inventive process is itself inventive. This would contradict established case law and examination practice on product-by-process claims. It held that the inventiveness of the present display could not be inferred from the alleged inventiveness of the manufacturing process, which was neither claimed nor examined. For these reasons, the technical effect of a reduction in chromaticity deviation was found to be a feature of the manufacturing process or of an ensemble of displays. It was not produced by the distinguishing feature of claims 1 and 6 and therefore could not be taken into account. The objective technical problem of claim 1 was therefore to provide a display with an alternative mixed colour.