T 0855/96 - Rechtsfrieden

Key points

• At the end of the year, a moment of reflection in the German original because Rechtsfrieden is quite untranslatable.
• "Für die Beurteilung, ob ein neues Dokument die Entscheidung wesentlich beeinflussen kann, und der Aufrechterhaltung des Patents entgegenstehen würde, ist eine eingehende Kenntnisname vom Inhalt des Dokuments unerläßlich. Wenn sich dabei herausstellt, daß das Dokument nicht so relevant ist, ist seine Berücksichtigung nicht zwingend. Es dient jedoch dem Rechtsfrieden sowie der Akzeptanz der Entscheidungen der Beschwerdekammern und trägt ihrer Bedeutung als der einzigen gerichtlichen Instanz Rechnung, die über die Patentierbarkeit des Patents mit Wirkung für alle benannten Vertragsstaaten entscheidet, wenn diese Entscheidungen den gesamten, im Beschwerdeverfahren unterbreiteten Streitstoff berücksichtigen. Die Kammer ist daher der Auffassung, daß ein im Beschwerdeverfahren vorgelegtes Dokument berücksichtigt werden sollte, wenn immer es verfahrensökonomisch vertretbar ist und das verspätet vorgebrachte Dokument nicht völlig irrelevant ist (vgl. T 339/92 vom 17. Februar 1995, Punkt 2 der Gründe).
  
  
• Wishing you peaceful holidays!

EPO 

The link to the decision can be found after the jump.

T 0056/21 - Revisiting the need to adapt the description

Key points

• Board 3.3.04 in the end decided to refer no questions to the Enlarged Board and kept to its view that the description of the application does not need to be adapted to amended claims.
• The decision is lengthy and contains a broad survey of all legal aspects of claim interpretation and many sensible observations, some of a general nature.   I will highlight a few points. The interested reader should certainly read the entire well-written decision. 
• The Board:  "The description may only be taken into consideration in determining the extent of protection of a patent in so far as it refers to a part or element of a claim. Matter disclosed in the description which is not linked to a part or element of a claim, is not to be considered (G 1/93, OJ EPO 1994, 541, point 14 of the Reasons)."
• G 1/93 r.14 "The Enlarged Board also agrees with the opponent that there is no basis under the EPC for a "footnote solution" of the kind referred to in paragraph 6 above. This follows from the mandatory character and effect of Article 123(2) and (3) EPC as discussed in the previous paragraph, as well as from the functions of the description and claims of a patent granted under the European patent system." ... "If a technically meaningful feature is included in a claim of a granted patent, Article 69(1) EPC requires that such feature, in combination with the other technical features of the claim, should be taken into account by a national court when it determines the extent of protection conferred by the patent, during infringement proceedings under national law pursuant to Article 64(3) EPC, for example". The TBA seems to apply an a contrario reasoning.
• "The Board has reservations about the view that there is a link between Articles 84 and 69 EPC which justifies the use of the description to interpret the claims for the purpose of examining an application. In fact, the assessment of patentability, which is a task entrusted to the examining divisions of the EPO alone, should be kept separate from the determination of the extent of protection conferred by a patent, which is a matter for consideration by national courts in infringement proceedings. "
• "Article 69(1) EPC and the Protocol can also not be considered to provide, by analogy, a general methodology for claim construction in grant proceedings. Applying the guidance of the Protocol in grant proceedings would amount to putting the cart before the horse. Indeed, the purpose of the grant proceedings is to arrive at an allowable definition in one or more claims of the matter for which protection is sought, rather than to establish before grant what the appropriate protection derived from such wording might be. Moreover, relying on the description to "interpret" the features in the claims before assessing their compliance with the requirements for patentability of the EPC would serve a different purpose than in the context of Article 69(1) EPC and would also have implications for the relationship between the claims and the description."
• We will see if the pending referral G 1/24 gives us any guidance on this point.
• "In summary, Article 84 EPC is not mutually complementary or subordinate to Article 69(1) EPC and the Protocol. Article 69(1) EPC and the Protocol are therefore not to be applied in examination"
  
  
• "The refusal by the examining division is also based on Rule 48(1)(c) EPC. According to this provision, a European patent application must not contain any statement or other matter obviously irrelevant or unnecessary under the circumstances."
• I understand the rule is based on Article 78 EPC.
• "Rule 48 EPC is about offending, disparaging, or irrelevant statements in a patent application, which statements may be omitted from the publication of the application. This provision is not about the patent specification and even less about purported discrepancies between the description and the claims intended for grant. As is apparent from paragraphs 2 and 3, Rule 48 EPC does not provide for a ground for refusal based on the inclusion of merely "irrelevant or unnecessary" matter. There is simply no room for an argument that irrelevant statements are to be handled more restrictively than statements that offend the public or competitors, and that maintaining such irrelevant statements can even lead to a rejection of the patent application."
• The Board's reasoning is different from the one in T1989/18 (see my post on T1444/20 where I also discussed T1989/18): "Rule 48(2) and (3) seem to indicate an additional measure, in my view, namely omitting the offensive statements from the A publication, in addition to the general sanction of refusal of the patent application when not complying with Rule 48(1) EPC. These measures were added in the course of the drafting, suggesting, in my view, that they are additions to the general sanction of refusal of the application [in case of non-compliance with a requirement specified under Article 78(1)), final clause] (see BR/135 e/71 p.25 / p.18 of the English Travaux to Rule 34 EPC; in view of BR/51 e/70 p.11 / p. 24 of the PDF; admittedly the Travaux are not very clear)" ( the link to the travaux is dead after the EPO's website upgrade and I can no longer link to individual documents in the travaux). 
• The TBA now discusses the history of the PCT provision. In the PCT provision, there is no sanction of refusal, but under the PCT, that can very well be the decision of the designated offices. The institutional set-up is different.
• There is more to say about Rule 48(1) EPC, but that is for another time.  
  
  
• For sure, the Habermassian non-coercive discourse ("herrschaftsfreier Diskurs") between the Boards will now continue (link).

The link to the decision can be found after the jump.

T 0980/22 - A purely mental design method

Key points

• Claim 1 is directed to a design process, in translation: "Claim 1: Design process for the manufacture of long-body railway carriages with different seating capacities, comprising:"
• The claim is rejected under Article 52(2)(c) as a purely mental activity.
• The Board, in translation: "claim 1 does not include a computer, nor a feature that is implemented (explicitly or implicitly) by a computer program."
• "The understanding that the manufacture itself is not a step of the construction process is also supported by the granted, independent claim 6. This is directed to the manufacture of the rail vehicle using the construction process. No further restriction would arise from claim 6 if the construction process already included the manufacture."
• It is an opposition appeal; a patent was granted with this claim 1.
• In auxiliary claim 3, claim 1 is deleted, and claim 6 is the new claim 1. Only Article 123(2) is examined. The Board reverses the OD and finds that the requirement has been complied with.  The case is remitted. 
• It seems there was no attempt to amend claim 1 into a computer-implemented design method.

EPO 

The link to the decision and an extract of it can be found after the jump.

T 0323/21 - Mathematical device

Key points

• "The invention relates to an applied cipher technique and, in particular, to a method for determining whether a nondecreasing sequence exists, without revealing input data"
• "There is a method, known from the prior art, called secure computation, for computing encrypted results from encrypted data without decrypting any of the encrypted data. Encryption is performed that distributes pieces of a numerical value among a plurality of secure computers which cooperate to perform a computation in such a manner that the result is distributed among the secure computers without reconstructing the numerical value, that is, with the result and the original value being kept encrypted"
•  Claim 1 is directed to "A nondecreasing sequence determining device (2), "
•  The device of claim 1 according to the main request consists of a combination of functional units that cooperate to assess whether a nondecreasing sequence can be created from a sequence of sets of numbers. This is achieved by selecting elements, one by one from each set in the sequence. The claim does not contain any reference to any concrete use of the result. The various functional units of the device are defined by their mathematical roles in the determination of whether or not there is a nondecreasing sequence."
• "The technical nature of the claimed subject-matter is limited to the existence of the software code running on the claimed device."
• "the mathematical functionalities defined in claim 1, to the extent that they do not interact with technical features to produce a technical effect, cannot justify the existence of an inventive step. "
• "The algorithm underlying the claimed device is exclusively of a mathematical nature. It is without any interaction with the device on which it operates. The technicality of the claimed device lies only in its materiality. Concretely, its technicality is limited to the combination of software code with the associated processing unit. The claimed device with its program code implements a purely mathematical method deprived, in its generality, of any technical purpose."
• "Independent claim 1 does not contain any concrete reference to a use of the claimed device and method. Therefore, independently of the fact that text matching is not technical in itself, no technical contribution can be derived from any specific use of the claimed invention if it cannot be derived, explicitly or implicitly, from the claimed subject-matter. "
• " More fundamentally, the effect put forward by the applicant is also not sufficient to confer technical character to a method which is mathematical by nature. In the absence of interaction with the device on which the algorithm is to be run, the recited method does not add to its technical character."
• Note, the ED rejected the application for lack of clarity. The Board's preliminary opinion was that the claims were clear and sufficiently disclosed, with a single sentence about 'technical contribution' under the inventive step. 
• There was no auxiliary request specifically directed to secure computing, it seems.
• 
  
  

EPO 

The link to the decision can be found after the jump.

T 1311/21 - Standard of proof, prior use, sale by a related company

Key points

• E7 is a user manual written by the company Sensors, Inc. for the product SEMTECH-DS sold by Sensors, Inc.
• "the board concurs with the patentee that the evidence on the question of whether E7 is part of the prior art is not in a neutral sphere of control, inter alia due to the undisputed business relationship between the opponent and Sensors, Inc., the board is of the opinion that the patentee did have opportunities to search for counter-evidence. In particular, as discussed during oral proceedings, the patentee could have directly contacted not only Sensors, Inc., but also the purchaser of SEMTECH-DS explicitly mentioned in document E7d, namely "The Texas Transportation Institute", whose contact details were even given in E7d, or searched for any other purchaser. 
• "Since the user manual E7 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, the board is of the opinion that neither standard of proof is applicable. "
• "in certain cases, such as the present one, this binary approach to proof standards can turn out to be overly formalistic and simplistic. On the one hand, since E7 originates not from the opponent but from a third party, it cannot simply be said that the evidence "lies within the sphere of the opponent". Hence, the higher standard of proof "beyond reasonable doubt" is not to be applied without further thought. On the other hand, the arguments put forward by the patentee (see point 3.2.1 (c) above) show that there is an imbalance between the parties in the access to E7 and thus the possibility to establish whether E7 is part of the prior art, so that it can also not simply be said that both parties had access to this evidence. Hence, the lower standard of proof "balance of probabilities" is also not to be applied without further thought. Already based on these basic considerations, neither standard appears to be suitable for application. The question then arises how to assess the evidence on the public availability of E7."
• "what matters, in plain language and as concluded in T 1138/20, Reasons 1.2.1, 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."
• "For the above reasons, the dispute between the parties about which exact standard of proof is to be applied to the present situation can be left undecided."
• "The board is convinced that, in view of the evidence E7 and E7d, the user manual E7 was made publicly available before the priority date of the patent, i.e. 19 May 2014, for the following reasons:" (follow detailed reasons)
• "The subject-matter of claim 1 is not novel in view of document E7 (Article 54(1) EPC). 
  
  
• Turning to an auxiliary erquest, and a further document E6: "It is undisputed between the parties that the standard of proof to be applied for assessing the public availability of E6 prior to the priority date of the patent is "beyond reasonable doubt"."
• "(a) The board is convinced beyond reasonable doubt that E6 forms part of the prior art under Article 54(2) EPC for the following reasons:

  (i) E6 is a handbook for a software with the title "AVL M.O.V.E System Control 2013". In the headnote of E6 are mentioned the date "M rz 2013", the reference "AT3732D" and the revision number "Rev. 02". In the delivery note E6c, page 2, the handbook E6 is identified as item "01.30.12" and described as "M.O.V.E SYSTEM CONTROL SOFTWARE, UG DOCU, AT3732D". According to E6cc, the handbook E6 was delivered to Daimler AG on 6 December 2013. While the actual version of the handbook E6 is not mentioned in the delivery note E6c, this missing information is to be found in E6e, the veracity and context of which is certified in E6f. In fact, as explained by the opponent during oral proceedings, according to E6e in conjunction with E6f, page A14, the version 02 of E6 was valid (in German in E6f: "g ltig ab") from 8 March 2013 to 09 December 2013, i.e. on the date of the delivery of E6 to Daimler AG. It follows that there is no doubt that a handbook E6, version Rev. 2, was delivered to Daimler AG before the priority date of the patent."

• 
  
• "E6 is a user manual intended to be delivered to all purchasers of an AVL M.O.V.E system and, as a user manual, only describes how to use a product already purchased by the customer. "
• "There is no presumption recognised in the jurisprudence for the existence of a non-disclosure agreement when it comes to the delivery of goods to one of many other end customers. On the contrary, the sale of a product to one of many other end customers, who generally wishes to dispose of the product freely (e.g., as the opponent stated during oral proceedings, the product will be used by an uncontrolled and unlimited number of employees of the customer), is considered to be a typical case of an unrestricted disclosure to the public. "
  
  
• The Board remits the case as the OD had concluded that E6 was no prior art.

EPO 

The link to the decision and an extract of it can be found after the jump.

T 0123/22 - Rule 80

Key points

• The proprietor appeals against the revocation of the patent. Claim 1 as granted was held to be not novel. The proprietor in the main request splitted up claim 1 into three independent claims.
• The opponent objects under Rule 80 EPC.
• The Board turns to T295/87. "In this regard, it should first be noted that Rule 57a EPC 1973 - the predecessor provision to Rule 80 EPC - was only introduced by the Administrative Council's decision of 13 December 1994 (see (OJ EPO 1995, [page] 9 ff.). Accordingly, T 295/87 does not directly concern this provision, but rather the question of whether the amendment made to the patent claims was necessary and appropriate within the meaning of Rules 57 and 58 EPC 1973. For this reason alone, it seems questionable whether the statements made in T 295/87 [point 3]- and adopted in some later decisions - can be applied to the application of Rule 80 EPC."
• T 295/87 seems to have concerned the addition of dependent claims.
• " the board called upon to decide the present case is of the opinion that no general guidelines can be derived from Rule 80 EPC as to the form in which a patent proprietor may amend claims in order for this amendment to be regarded as being prompted by a ground for opposition (see also T 2982/18, point 2.4 of the Reasons and T 359/13, point 1.1 of the Reasons, last paragraph). In particular, Rule 80 EPC makes no distinction as to whether the additional features included in an opposed claim originate from dependent claims or from the description. The only relevant factor for assessing the requirement of Rule 80 EPC is whether the amendment made is prompted by a ground for opposition. In this case, it must be examined whether the amendment is to be regarded as a serious attempt to counter a ground for opposition (see T 750/11, point 2.3.2 of the Reasons on the latter)."
• "Whether the additional features included in an independent claim under attack originate from dependent claims or from the description can affect the complexity of the amendment and play a role in discretionary decisions to admit late submissions. However, such admission decisions must be distinguished from the application of Rule 80 EPC. Rule 80 EPC is not designed as a discretionary rule - as is clear in the German version from the use of the imperative present tense - but concerns a substantive requirement for the allowability of an amendment made in opposition proceedings. The preparatory work also confirms this (see CA/12/94 Rev 1, No. 6.2 of the Reasons: "The new Rule 57a proposes a lex specialis for amendments in opposition proceedings. It is a purely substantive regulation of the right to amend. No regulation is made here about the point in time up to which amendments are permissible [...]"). Whether the requirement of Rule 80 EPC is met can therefore - like other substantive rules - only be taken into account in decisions on the admission of claims in the context of the prima facie allowability of a claim set. Prima facie allowability, like the complexity of the amendment, can be a criterion for the exercise of discretion in the admission of late submissions."
• As far as I know, Administrative Council document CA/12/94 is not public. I leave the issue of citing non-public preparatory documents as a basis for a legal interpretation aside here because largely the same statement was published in the Notice in OJ 1995, p.416: ""  [New Rule 57a] addresses the purely substantive aspects of the proprietor´s entitlement to amend his patent, and does not specify the point in time up to which amendment is allowed: here existing practice would remain unchanged"." (link to weblog post)
• The key part of Rule 80 is "even if that ground has not been invoked by the opponent", which puts a gloss on "necessary"  in Rule 81(3) EPC (not the "appropriate" requirement in Rule 81(3)). See my post on T256/19.
• "As regards the replacement of an independent claim affected by a ground of opposition by several independent claims, the board agrees with decision T 431/22, point 1 of the Reasons, according to which Rule 80 EPC does not preclude such an amendment provided that the subject-matter of the new independent claims is restricted or modified compared to the subject-matter of the contested claim. As explained in T 431/22, it is in principle legitimate for a patent proprietor to try to cover parts of the contested independent claim in order to overcome a ground of opposition, possibly by means of two or more independent claims (see in this regard also T 2290/12, point 4.1 of the Reasons, third paragraph). As explained in T 99/04, point 13 of the Reasons, the purpose of Rule 80 EPC is not to prevent a patent proprietor from maintaining the patent as broadly as possible, taking into account the grounds of opposition. "
• "As with the inclusion of features from the description, the replacement of an independent claim by several other independent claims may affect the complexity of the amendment and play a role in discretionary decisions to admit late-filed submissions. However, as explained in point 3.7 above, such admission decisions must be distinguished from the application of Rule 80 EPC. Also to be distinguished from Rule 80 EPC is the examination of whether the requirements of Article 84 EPC are met (on the latter, see T 2290/12, point 4.1 of the Reasons, last paragraph). 
• "In summary, the question of whether the replacement of an independent claim by several other independent claims within the meaning of Rule 80 EPC was caused by a ground for opposition cannot be answered in the negative in principle [...]"
• As a comment, G1/91 can be mentioned: lack of unity is no restriction in opposition. Rule 80 EPC can not be used to undermine G1/91 by the backdoor.
• See also T 0431/22: "a limit should be drawn if such an approach of replacing an independent claim [with multiple independent claims] appears to be [...] an abuse of procedure."
• 
  

EPO 

The link to the decision and an extract of it can be found after the jump.

T 1975/19 - Transfer of priority

Key points

• The presumption of G 1/22 is rebuttable. However, the question is: how can it be rebutted? 
• R.110: "The presumption that the subsequent applicant is entitled to the priority right is a strong presumption under normal circumstances since the other priority requirements (which establish the basis for the presumption of priority entitlement) can usually only be fulfilled with the consent and even cooperation of the priority applicant (see above points 104 ff). The party challenging the entitlement to priority can thus not just raise speculative doubts but must demonstrate that specific facts support serious doubts about the subsequent applicant's entitlement to priority."
• The Enlarged Board seems to say here (and in r.113) that the presumption can be rebutted by the opponent (when contesting the priority of a patent) by "demonstrate[ing] that specific facts support serious doubts about the subsequent applicant's entitlement to priority"
• However, the Enlarged Board also states, in point 110: "The rebuttable presumption involves the reversal of the burden of proof, i.e. the party challenging the subsequent applicant's entitlement to priority has to prove that this entitlement is missing."
• The present Board: "The party challenging the subsequent applicant's entitlement to priority has to prove that this entitlement is missing (see point 110 of the reasons [of G1/22]). The presumption that the subsequent applicant is entitled to the priority right is a strong presumption under normal circumstances. The party challenging the entitlement to priority cannot just raise speculative doubts but must demonstrate that specific facts support serious doubts about the subsequent applicant's entitlement to priority."
• "Here, the evidence on file does not establish that the priority applicants did not allow the subsequent applicant to rely on the priority."
• "However, in the Board's view, considering that G 1/22 establishes a strong presumption of validity and places the burden on the opponents to prove the contrary, the lack of evidence of a transfer of the right to priority to the subsequent applicant cannot be equated with a proof that this transfer did not take place."
• The question is how point 110 of G 1/22, as a whole, must be interpreted: as prescribing that the opponent must show that something (an assignment, not even a tacit one) did not take place, or if it is sufficient for the opponent to raise substantiated "serious doubts", after which the normal rules of evidence apply?
•  "Absent any further circumstances, evidence of a transfer of the right to priority to a third party other than the subsequent applicant, such as to Alcon Inc. (see T 2431/17, point 1.5.5 of the reasons, third paragraph), does not amount either to a proof that this right to priority was not, in turn, further transferred to the subsequent applicant. "
• In this case, the inventors (applicants of the US provisional serving as the priority application) had assigned their rights to Alcon Inc. in advance in their employment contracts; there is proof of that.  Indeed, there could be an assignment (e.g. a simple email) from Alon Inc. to the applicant of the PCT application (Alcon Research Ltd.). 
• "considering the low standards applicable under the autonomous law of the EPC, in which even informal or tacit transfers of priority rights are normally accepted (see G 1/22, points 99-100 of the reasons), the fact that document D61 is entitled "License agreement" does not prima facie demonstrate either that the transfer to the subsequent applicant did not take place."
• There is indeed a license agreement between the PCT applicant and another legal entity in the group that was said to have acquired the IP rights of Alcon Inc. (see T2431/17 r.1.5.4.(c)). The proprietor had filed this document and a declaration about it in the T2431/17 procedure. 
• "as explained in G 1/22 (see point 106 of the reasons), the presumption also applies if the title to the subsequent application has not been acquired from the priority applicant but from a third party having the right to the invention in the respective territory. 
• "The presumption also applies if the title to the subsequent application has not been acquired from the priority applicant but from a third party having the right to the invention in the respective territory (for example, from the inventor, see above the figure in point 74). Also in this situation, the priority applicant must provide the necessary support under Article 88(1) EPC, and the common predecessor with respect to the title to the two applications must be deemed to consent to the subsequent applicant's reliance on the priority right like any priority applicant assigning the title to the subsequent application."
• "This presumption applies all the more in the case at hand considering that all parties involved are legal persons belonging to the same group and their employees. 
• "Accordingly, the appellants' [opponents'] late submissions are not prima facie convincing."
• The newly filed documents and objections are not admitted under Art. 12(4) RPBA 2007. 

Cross-case binding effect

• "The patent in suit derives from a divisional application. The present Board issued decision T 2431/17 in respect of the patent deriving from the parent application. In this decision, the Board, following the established case law at the time, which placed the burden of proof on the applicant asserting that priority is rightly claimed (see point 1.5.3 of the reasons), found the priority to be invalid because the succession in title had not been credibly established. The appellants invoke a binding effect of this earlier decision. The Board does not agree."

• "At most, the principle of res judicata may be applicable, though some Boards have questioned whether a final decision taken in opposition appeal proceedings could have any "cross-procedural" res judicata effect at all on separate opposition (or opposition appeal) proceedings concerning a patent granted on a divisional "

• Cross-case res iudicata was accepted in T 51/08. 

• "Res judicata is a matter finally settled by a court of competent jurisdiction, rendering that matter conclusive as to the rights of the parties and their privies, such a final judgment constituting an absolute bar to a subsequent legal action involving the same claim, demand or cause of action, and the same parties or their privies ([CLBA] V.A.10.1). As explained in T 167/93 (see point 2.5 of the reasons), this principle is of extremely narrow scope and supposes, among others, not only that the parties are the same but also that the issues of fact are the same. This is however not the case here, considering at least that the claim requests are different (in which the present case differs from T 51/08 cited by the appellants) and that the admittance of the priority issue was not under debate in the parent case T 2431/17. For these reasons already, the Board considers that the principle of res judicata is not applicable, i.e. that it neither precludes the respondent from pursuing the present different claim requests in the divisional case at hand, nor mandates that the issue of priority entitlement be admitted in the present appeal proceedings, and even less that it be considered settled."

• I'm not sure if the relevant facts are different between the two cases. Howeve, the Board does not seem to imply that if the facts would have been the same, it would have followed T51/08.

EPO 

The link to the decision and an extract of it can be found after the jump.