a) Surgical nature of a method step

In T 992/03 of 4 November 2010 date: 2010-11-04, ¹²⁹Xe gas was used as part of the claimed method. The board referred to G 1/07 according to which "there is an exclusion from patentability as a surgical method only if the health risk is associated with the mode of administration and not solely with the agent as such" and any anaesthetic effect of the ¹²⁹Xe gas thus did not fall under the exclusion (see also T 318/21).