9.21.11 Putting the closest prior art device into practice

In T 405/13 the invention was a meter with rapid response glucose sensor further adapted to cause the measurement of current to occur at a time 5 seconds or less after the detection of sample application. The objective technical problem to be solved was to implement a timing circuit having a concrete point in time at which the timing circuit causes the measurement of current to occur. Deciding whether the claimed solution to this problem was obvious or not boiled down to the question of whether or not the skilled person, while putting the meter of D10 (biosensing meter) into practice, would arrive at a value falling within the claimed range (for a similar approach see T 408/12 and T 315/97 of 21 June 2002 date: 2002-06-21). In the board's view, no inventive step could be seen in including in the reasonably broad time range as required by the timing circuit of the meter of D10 the claimed value of 5 seconds, the less so since reducing measurement time had to be considered as an obvious desire of the user.