T 1184/12 - Accelerated appeal

T 1184/12
For the decision, click here.


Key points

• Accelerated proceedings in appeal can be requested by the parties, but also by the courts of Contracting States. In this case, a Finnish court had requested acceleration of the proceedings.
• Also interesting discussion about novelty and inventive step of a second medical use. 

Reasons for the Decision

3. Request for accelerated processing

The Finnish Market Court had asked for accelerated processing of the present appeal, in view of revocation and infringement actions concerning the patent in Finland. In accordance with the Notice from the Vice-President Directorate-General 3 concerning accelerated processing before the boards of appeal (OJ EPO 2008, 220), the case was accelerated and oral proceedings before the board were scheduled as soon as possible.

[...]

5.2.5 Moreover, although document D1 teaches that the combination formoterol/budesonide provides a "rescue medicine", i.e. teaches that the combination can also be used for symptomatic relief, it does not specifically disclose a therapeutic regime consisting of both regular therapy together with symptomatic relief for a composition simultaneously containing formoterol and budenoside. The board thus comes to the conclusion that the treatment regime as claimed in claim 1 of the main request is not directly and unambiguously disclosed in D1, and this is, according to established case law, enough to render a second medical use claim notionally novel over the prior art (G 2/08, OJ EPO 2010, 456).