Selected decisions
The list of “Selected decisions” alerts users to all newly published decisions for which a headnote or a catchword has been provided by the board. Usually, a board will add a headnote or catchword if it wishes to provide a brief summary of a particular point of law or to draw attention to an important part of the reasons for the decision. The list contains all decisions with a headnote or catchword published in the last three years and can be viewed by year by selecting the year from the menu on the left.
The list below contains all decisions with a headnote or catchword that have been released for publication in the last six months (newest first).
November 2024
Under Article 112(1)(a) EPC and Article 21 RPBA the following points of law are referred to the Enlarged Board of Appeal for decision:
After withdrawal of all appeals, may the proceedings be continued with a third party who intervened during the appeal proceedings? In particular, may the third party acquire an appellant status corresponding to the status of a person entitled to appeal within the meaning of Article 107, first sentence, EPC?
Re-establishment of rights - missed time limit for filing notice of appeal and for paying appeal fee
Re-establishment of rights - missed time limit for filing statement of grounds of appeal
Re-establishment of rights - one or two re-establishment fees due (left undecided)
Re-establishment of rights - request duly substantiated (no)
Re-establishment of rights - inability to observe a time limit (no)
Re-establishment of rights - request admissible (no)
Admissibility of appeal - appeal deemed not to have been filed
The appellant considered that ... when [G 1/19] , e.g. at reasons, point 51, states that any technical effect going beyond the implementation of the process on a computer may be considered for inventive step, it means anything beyond a 1:1 mapping between the implementation and a step of the business method being implemented. In other words, any subject-matter that does not "map" to a step in the business method is technical.
The Board agrees that the "implementation" of a business method implies some sort of mapping between non-technical steps of the business method and their technical realisation. Decision G 1/19 has something to say about this mapping, at least in the forward direction, at point 51, when it rephrases the requirement for technical effect as "technical effect going beyond the simulation's straightforward or unspecified implementation on a standard computer system". Thus, even a 1:1 mapping might be inventive if it is not "straight-forward" (e.g. not standard programming or routine modification of the technical means used), or "unspecified" (e.g. not simply as "means for [carrying out the step]").
But, looking for a mapping from "implementation" to the step of a business method in the reverse direction does not make sense as the steps of the non-technical activity do not have to be specified explicitly. They would include any steps that the business person would come up with in a non-technical workflow. The way this is handled is by considering the mapping of the implementation to the effect of the step and to examine whether the effect has any technical character, or whether it would be covered by what the business person would consider as part of the non-technical process. This is, in other words, the standard COMVIK approach where one looks at the effect of a feature in order to pose a technical problem, which might simply be the implementation of the feature, for which the above-mentioned mapping in the forward direction meant in G 1/19 applies. (See Reasons 2.18)
Inventive step - workflow rules controlling tasks and tags labelling the states of the tasks (no
Inventive step - not technical)
Einspruchsgründe - Hauptantrag
Einspruchsgründe - Gegenstand geht über den Inhalt der früheren Anmeldung hinaus (ja)
Spät eingereichter Antrag - Hilfsanträge 1 und 2
Spät eingereichter Antrag - wäre bereits im erstinstanzlichen Verfahren vorzubringen gewesen (ja)
1. Parties are free to formulate requests conditional on the board's findings on questions to be decided. The condition may also relate to the board's underlying reasons. (Reasons 4.4)
2. A party cannot, through such conditional requests, oblige the board to provide its full reasons for its decision before the final decision is issued. (Reasons 4.6)
3. Conditional requests that are conditional on the board's reasons can also contribute to procedural efficiency and can help the board to reach a decision without having to discuss issues that may turn out not to be decisive for the final outcome of the appeal. However, such requests do not bind a board in the sense that a party can oblige the board to conduct the proceedings only in a particular order or only restricted to particular issues as a party wishes, thereby possibly avoiding undesirable outcomes for that party. In proceedings involving several parties other parties are also free to argue why the board should not allow such a conditional request. In principle, the board is free to conduct the proceedings in any appropriate order and to discuss any issue, as long as the relevant substantive and procedural requests of the parties are properly considered and decided. (Reasons 4.7 and 4.8)
Novelty - main request (no)
Late-filed request - justification for late filing (yes)
Late-filed request - admitted (yes)
Late-filed evidence - justification for late filing (yes)
Late-filed evidence - admitted (yes)
Stay of proceedings in view of a pending referral to the Enlarged Board of Appeal (no)
Obligation to raise objections - objection raised (yes)
Obligation to raise objections - objection dismissed
Remittal to the department of first instance
1. Where the opponent appeals against the maintenance of the patent in unamended form and auxiliary requests filed before the opposition division are not discussed in the impugned decision, such auxiliary requests need to be substantiated when re-submitted in appeal, even in the absence of previous arguments against such requests in the file.
2. Should the main request fall, the respondent proprietor must normally request that the decision be set aside and argue why the patent should be maintained in an amended form, i.e. why the decision under appeal should be amended within the meaning of Article 12(3) RPBA (Reasons 3.1.3).
3. Given that there are no tangible arguments in the impugned decision why these requests should or should not be held allowable, the board cannot proceed in the usual manner to review the decision under appeal. On the other hand, the board also cannot allow these requests without examining them on their merits. Under these circumstances it is first and foremost the duty of the proprietor to give reasons how the auxiliary requests would overcome the objections against the main request (Reasons 3.1.4).
4. Given that an auxiliary request becomes relevant where a higher ranking request is not allowable, arguments provided for the higher ranking request cannot be sufficient for allowing the lower ranking request. Something additional is required (Reason 3.1.6).
Grounds for opposition - added subject-matter (yes)
Amendments - added subject-matter (yes)
Amendments - allowable (no)
Amendments - inescapable trap (yes)
Reply to statement of grounds of appeal - party's complete appeal case
Reply to statement of grounds of appeal - reasons set out clearly and concisely (no)
Amendment to case - exercise of discretion
Amendment to case - amendment overcomes objection (no)
October 2024
Savoirs traditionnels - L'article 53a) CBE (point 2 des raisons)
Nouveauté des substances d'origine naturelle (point 3 des raisons)
Exceptions à la brevetabilité - invention contraire aux bonnes moeurs (non)
Exceptions à la brevetabilité - invention contraire à l'ordre public (non)
Nouveauté des substances d'origine naturelle
Activité inventive
Verfahren des maschinellen Lernens (künstliches neuronales Netz)
Ausführbarkeit - Hauptantrag (nein) - Hilfsanträge 1 bis 5 (nein)
Rückzahlung der Beschwerdegebühr - (nein)
Eine Ermessensausübung durch eine Beschwerdekammer bezüglich der Zulässigkeit neuen Vorbringens kann nur überprüft werden, wenn sie willkürlich oder offensichtlich rechtswidrig ist und damit eine schwerwiegende Verletzung des Anspruchs auf rechtlichen Gehörs vorliegt (Entscheidungsgründe 2.1).
Die Rechtsprechung des Europäischen Gerichtshofs für Menschenrechte (EGMR) gibt keine Anhaltspunkte dafür, einschränkende Regelungen wie die des Konvergenzansatzes grundsätzlich in Frage zu stellen oder ihrer Anwendung generell die Vereinbarkeit mit Artikel 6 EMRK abzusprechen. Nach der einschlägigen Rechtsprechung sei im Gegenteil "die Einhaltung formalisierter Zivilprozessregeln, durch die die Parteien die Entscheidung eines Zivilstreits sicherstellen, wertvoll und wichtig, ... da sie in der Lage" ist, "den Ermessensspielraum zu begrenzen, die Waffengleichheit zu gewährleisten, Willkür zu verhindern, die wirksame Entscheidung einer Streitigkeit und die Entscheidung innerhalb einer angemessenen Frist zu gewährleisten und Rechtssicherheit und Achtung des Gerichts zu gewährleisten" (Entscheidungsgründe 2.10).
Das Nemo-Tenetur-Prinzip (das Recht sich nicht selbst belasten zu müssen) gilt nur im Strafverfahren (Entscheidungsgründe 2.11).
Eine bewusste Zurückhaltung der Rückzugposition gemäß Hilfsantrag aus prozesstaktischen Gründen bis zur mündlichen Verhandlung scheint gerade dem Grundsatz der Waffengleichheit zu widersprechen, nachdem die Gegenseite die vermeintliche Schwachstelle des Patents ja bereits frühzeitig offengelegt hat, und damit ihrer Pflicht zur Verfahrensbeförderung nachgekommen ist (Entscheidungsgründe 2.12).
Die Rechtsprechung des EKMR zur Nichtzulassung eines Antrags oder Beweismittels bezieht sich insbesondere auf die Prüfung, ob ein legitimes Ziel in verhältnismäßiger Weise verfolgt wurde oder ob ein ,,übertriebener Formalismus" vorliegt (keine derartigen Umstände in diesem Fall) (Entscheidungsgründe 2.12).
Die Regelungen nach VOBK 2007 bzw. VOBK 2020 galten für beiden Parteien gleich. Die Ausgestaltung der Übergangsbestimmungen in Artikel 25 VOBK 2020 liegt dabei im Ermessensspielraum des Gesetzgebers (Entscheidungsgründe 2.13).
Nichtzulassung eines Hilfsantrags - Verletzung des Rechts auf rechtliches Gehör (nein)
Antrag auf Überprüfung - offensichtlich unbegründet
1. Where the opposition division decides at the same time on several objections of added subject-matter, resulting in the filing of a single amended request overcoming all objections during the first-instance proceedings, Article 12(6) RPBA does not prevent the board from admitting a new request overcoming only some of the objections raised during first-instance proceedings (see reasons 2.1.2).
2. The two standards of proof appearing in the jurisprudence of the boards of appeal - "balance of probabilities" and "beyond reasonable doubt" - may well be used as a yardstick in straightforward cases. However, this binary approach to proof standards can turn out to be overly formalistic and simplistic. If the evidence whose public availability prior to the priority date of the patent is at issue is neither within the sphere of control of the opponent nor within a neutral sphere of control to which both parties have access, neither standard of proof is exclusively applicable; rather, what matters
is the deciding body's conviction on the occurrence of an alleged fact
, taking into account the particular circumstances of the case and the relevant evidence before it (see Reasons 3.2.1).
Amendment to case - complexity of amendment (main request: yes; first auxiliary request: no)
Amendment to case - suitability of amendment to address issues (main request: no; first auxiliary request: yes)
Late-filed request - should have been submitted in first-instance proceedings (first auxiliary request: no)
Novelty - public prior use
Novelty - standard of proof
Novelty - public prior use
Novelty - obligation to maintain secrecy
Remittal - special reasons for remittal (yes)