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II. Patent application and amendments
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  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. II. Patent application and amendments
  6. C. Sufficiency of disclosure
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C. Sufficiency of disclosure

Overview

C. Sufficiency of disclosure

1.Introduction
2.Date of compliance

3.Parts of the application relevant for assessing sufficiency of disclosure

3.1.Application as a whole
3.2.Alleged effect not a feature of the claims

4.Knowledge of skilled person relevant for assessing sufficiency of disclosure

4.1.The disclosure is aimed at the skilled person
4.2.References may also enable the skilled person to carry out an invention

5.Clarity and completeness of disclosure

5.1.General principles
5.2.Indication of at least 'one way'
5.3.Examples
5.4.Invention to be performed over whole range claimed
5.5.Parameters
5.5.1Ambiguous parameters
a)Essential parameters
b)Several known methods of determining a parameter
c)No or incomplete information on method of determining parameter
d)Effect of ambiguous parameter on claim interpretation
5.5.2Open-ended parameter features
5.5.3Unusual parameters

6.Reproducibility

6.1.Repeatability
6.2.Hypothetical embodiments
6.3.Variants
6.4.Use to which invention is put
6.5.Reach-through claims
6.6.Reproducibility without undue burden
6.6.1Occasional failure
6.6.2Routine selection
6.6.3Wrong citations
6.6.4Forbidden area of the claims
6.6.5Non-disclosed steps
6.6.6Machine not available
6.6.7Experiments
6.6.8Calibration and identifiable measurement method
6.6.9Analytical measuring methods
6.6.10Chemical compounds
6.7.Trial and error
6.8.Post-published documents

7.The requirement of sufficiency of disclosure in the biotechnology field

7.1.Clarity and completeness of disclosure
7.1.1General
7.1.2One way of implementing invention over whole scope of claim
7.1.3Repeatability
7.1.4Broad claims
7.2.Level of disclosure required for medical use – plausibility
7.2.1Principles established by the case law
7.2.2Evidence of therapeutic effect
a)Plausibility of therapeutic effect
b)Consequences of plausibility for whether post-published documents considered
c)Consideration of post-published documents limited: cannot remedy a fundamental insufficiency of disclosure
d)Whether opponents can cite post-published documents
e)Types of evidence of a therapeutic effect and consideration of clinical trials
7.2.3Pharmaceutical compositions
7.2.4Field of pharmaceutical combinations (drug-drug interactions)
7.2.5Medicament directed to a specific group of patients
7.3.Level of disclosure required for antibodies
7.4.Factors contributing to a finding of undue burden
7.5.Requirements relating to nucleotide and amino acid sequences
7.6.Deposit of living material
7.6.1Substantive law questions
7.6.2Procedural law questions
a)Conversion into deposit under the Budapest Treaty
b)Late submission of deposit number
c)Biological material deposited by a person other than the applicant

8.The relationship between Article 83 and Article 84 EPC

8.1.Article 83 EPC and support from the description
8.2.Article 83 EPC and clarity of claims
8.2.1Minority – or earlier – case law
8.2.2Majority case law
a)Currently predominant approach
b)Case law before the now established approach.
c)Recent debate around the majority and minority lines of case law and alleged divergence in the case law

9.Evidence

9.1.General principles
9.2.Consequences of a strong or weak presumption for sufficiency of disclosure
9.3.Objection of insufficient disclosure rejected – examples
9.4.Burden of proof on the opponent – special cases
9.5.Taking account of doubts
9.6.Burden of proof wrongly allocated at first instance
9.7.Consequence of an invention going against generally accepted scientific principles
9.8.Miscellaneous – argument based on potential effects on competition rejected by the board
New decisions
T 1311/22

Orientierungssatz: 

Funktionelle Merkmale und Ausführbarkeit, siehe Gründe 3.2 bis 3.4 und 3.5.1.

T 1076/21

Catchword:

The burden of proof regarding the facts, arguments and evidence on the substance (which initially lies with the opponent) does not shift to the proprietor just because the patent has been revoked due to an alleged insufficient disclosure. It is down to the patent proprietor to substantiate on appeal why that decision is wrong. The burden of proof on the substance (and in consequence the benefit of the doubt), however, is only shifted when the opposition division's assessment that the presented facts, arguments and evidence were sufficient to discharge the opponent's burden of proof turns out to be correct. (See item 1. of the grounds)

T 867/21

Catchword: Im vorliegenden Fall konnte von der Beschwerdeführerin nicht erwartet werden, auf einen einzelnen Aspekt einer in ihrer Gesamtheit nicht überzeugenden Argumentationslinie in der angefochtenen Entscheidung der Prüfungsabteilung mit auf diesen Aspekt gerichteten Änderungen, die alle Einwände der Beschwerdekammer ausräumen, bereits bei Einlegen der Beschwerde zu reagieren.

T 728/21

Catchword: 

In accordance with the jurisprudence exemplified by T 609/02 (see section 9), the suitability of the claimed composition for the defined therapeutic use needs to be disclosed in the patent, "unless this is already known". This jurisprudence confirms in the Boards view that the disclosed utility of the claimed composition may also derive its credibility from the prior art, even if this prior art does not represent common general knowledge (see point 3.3).

T 424/21

Catchword: 

1. If the deletion of dependent claims after notification of a summons to oral proceedings enhances procedural economy by clearly overcoming existing objections without giving rise to any new issues this might constitute cogent reasons justifying exceptional circumstances in the sense of Article 13(2) RPBA 2020. 

2. For a first medical use of a substance or composition according to Article 54(4) EPC to be sufficiently disclosed it is not required to show the suitability for each and every disease, but it usually suffices to show that at least one medical use is credibly achieved.

T 149/21

Catchword:

Zur Ausführbarkeit der beanspruchten Erfindung "im gesamten beanspruchten Bereich": siehe Punkt 3 der Entscheidungsgründe.

T 500/20

Catchword: 

Reasons 3.6. In claimed inventions that do not involve a range of parameter values or compositions but are directed at a concept expressed in terms of generic structural or functional features of an apparatus or of a method, it is not enough to demonstrate insufficiency to conceive of an example that falls within the terms of the claim that does not work because it does not achieve the claimed effect fully or at all so that therefore the invention would not be sufficiently disclosed across the entire breadth of the claim.

T 1983/19

Catchword:

Ausführbarkeit der Erfindung "über den gesamten beanspruchten Bereich" auf dem Gebiet der Mechanik (siehe Punkt 2.1.3 der Entscheidungsgründe)

G 2/21

Headnote: 

I. Evidence submitted by a patent applicant or proprietor to prove a technical effect relied upon for acknowledgement of inventive step of the claimed subject-matter may not be disregarded solely on the ground that such evidence, on which the effect rests, had not been public before the filing date of the patent in suit and was filed after that date. 

II. A patent applicant or proprietor may rely upon a technical effect for inventive step if the skilled person, having the common general knowledge in mind, and based on the application as originally filed, would derive said effect as being encompassed by the technical teaching and embodied by the same originally disclosed invention.

T 553/23

Abstract

Ex parte Fall T 553/23 betraf die Lokalisierung von Objekten in einem Laderaum eines Transportfahrzeugs mittels einer optischen Positionserkennung. Die Anmeldung wurde von der Prüfungsabteilung im Wesentlichen zurückgewiesen, weil keiner der Anträge die Erfordernisse der Ausführbarkeit erfüllte.

Bezüglich der Prüfung des Hauptantrags (nicht gewährbar), erinnerte die Kammer zunächst daran, dass Art. 83 EPÜ nicht erfüllt sei, wenn eine im Anspruch ausgedrückte Wirkung nicht reproduziert werden könne. Die Prüfungsabteilung habe die Ausführbarkeit der beanspruchten Lehre auf Grund der Problematik eines verdeckten Sichtfelds für die optische Positionsbestimmung zurecht in Frage gestellt. Denn um ein stetes Nachverfolgen der Position eines Objekts im Laderaum zu gewährleisten, musste dieses jederzeit optisch erkennbar sein. Dies trifft vor allem dann bei einer mehrlagigen Beladung nicht zu. Die Beschwerdeführerin argumentierte, dass Anspruch 1 auch den speziellen Fall umfasse, dass genau ein Objekt transportiert wird. Dabei könne die Problematik eines verdeckten Sichtfelds gar nicht auftreten und damit sei die Lehre auf jeden Fall ausführbar. Die Kammer stimmte dem zwar zu, jedoch muss die beanspruchte Lehre in ihrer ganzen Breite ausführbar sein, also auch für den eigentlichen Anwendungsfall der Erfindung, bei dem eine Mehrzahl von Objekten nebeneinander und in mehreren Lagen transportiert werden.

Was den Fall einer mehrlagigen Anordnung von Objekten betrifft, stimmte die Kammer der angefochtenen Entscheidung zu, dass nicht alle Objekte sicher optisch lokalisiert werden können. Dies gilt unabhängig von der räumlichen Anordnung einer Kamera (oder eines Laserscanners) im Laderaum. Damit wird der angestrebte Zweck mit den beanspruchten Mitteln nicht sicher erreicht. Daran können auch Versuche des Fachmanns nichts ändern. Das Argument der angeblich üblichen Messunsicherheit wurde zurückgewiesen. Auch eine Zeugeneinvernahme des Erfinders könne daran nichts ändern, da diese die Offenbarung nicht ersetze.

Im Hilfsantrag (gewährbar) ging es um nebeneinander angeordnete Objekte, nicht mehr um nur ein transportiertes Objekt oder um den problematischen mehrlagigen Fall. Es wurde spezifiziert, dass die Positionsbestimmungsvorrichtung an der Decke des Laderaums angebracht war. Keine eindeutige Aussage konnte darüber getroffen werden, ob ein großes Objekt das Sichtfeld auf ein kleines Objekt verdeckt. In Anspruch 1 fehlten nähere Informationen zur räumlichen Anordnung der Kamera, die eine Ausführbarkeit der Erfindung für alle möglichen unterschiedliche Größen von Objekten gewährleistete. Es könne (anders als beim mehrlagigen Fall mit übereinandergestapelten Objekten) nicht pauschal angenommen werden, dass die beanspruchte Lehre nicht ausführbar sei. Jedoch muss der Fachmann zumindest Versuche durchführen, wozu ihm die Anmeldungsunterlagen abgesehen von dem Ausführungsbeispiel nach Figur 1 keine Hilfestellung boten.

Nach der Rechtsprechung der Beschwerdekammern ist nicht erforderlich, dass eine Reproduktion in jeder denkbaren theoretischen Konstellation gelingt. "In einem Anspruch wird allgemein versucht, eine Vorrichtung unter Idealbedingungen zu definieren. Kann sich der Fachmann unter Berücksichtigung der Offenbarung und des allgemeinen Fachwissens erschließen, was funktioniert und was nicht, ist eine beanspruchte Erfindung hinreichend offenbart, auch wenn eine breite Auslegung einen Gegenstand einschließen könnte, der nicht funktioniert. Im vorliegenden Fall ist der Fachmann in der Lage, Situationen direkt zu erkennen und auszuschließen, die offenkundig die angestrebte Wirkung nicht erzielen (etwa aufgrund einer verdeckten Sicht) und darauf durch eine angepasste Positionsbestimmungsvorrichtung zu reagieren. Die Kammer hat keine Zweifel daran, dass der Fachmann im Rahmen seines allgemeinen Fachwissens das funktionale Merkmal einer optischen Positionsbestimmungsvorrichtung den Größenverhältnissen der zu transportierenden Objekte anpassen würde", so die Kammer in ihrem Orientierungssatz (s. auch Punkt 3.5 der Gründe). Der zweite Absatz des Orientierungssatzes betrifft die Ermittlung des nächstliegenden Stands der Technik für die Bewertung der erfinderischen Tätigkeit.

Case Law Suppl.
2023 compilation “Abstracts of decisions”

Annual report: case law 2022
Summaries of decisions in the language of the proceedings
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