T 2342/22 - Partial priority and generic intermediate art

Key points

• Claim 1 is a second medical use claim for a combination therapy. Claim 1 has partial priority for only one embodiment. In particular, the priority document discloses only an embodiment with a specific order for administering the medicines. 
• D9 is a conference paper published in the priority year. It teaches the medical use (the method of therapy), but not the order of the administration. D9 does not specify the order in which the components of the combination therapy were administered to patients. 
• Is claim 1 novel over D9?
• According to the Board, yes, because "Since document D9 fails to disclose an order of administration not covered by the partial priority right conferred by the disclosure in [the priority document], the board considers that the disclosure of document D9 cannot anticipate the subject-matter of claim 1 within the meaning of Article 54 EPC."
• Hence, to anticipate the claim, D9 should have taught an embodiment that is unambiguously outside the part of the claim for which the priority is valid (and that is, also, in accordance with the claim).
• However, the claim is not inventive over D9 as the CPA. 
• "Starting from document D9 as the closest prior art, which discloses the use of a FITC-tagged adapter molecule in combination with AT-CAR T cells but does not specify an administration regimen, the skilled person would recognise that document D9 leaves open three alternative possibilities: administering the tagged adapter molecule prior to, simultaneously with or after the AT-CAR T cells. ... The arbitrary selection of one of them does not involve an inventive step."

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T 0083/23 - Debit order on paper

Key points

• " In the present case, the opponent filed a notice of appeal within two months of notification of the opposition division's decision. As to the appeal fee, an order to debit the opponent's deposit account was given in the notice of appeal, thus on paper rather than in an electronically processable format."
• Also in January 2023, the ADA specified that debit orders must be "filed in an electronically processable format (xml) via one of the following: - EPO Online Filing using EPO Forms 1001E, 1200E, 2300E or 1038E, or Online Filing 2.0 using EPO Forms 1001E, 1200E or 1038E ... "
• "In the board's view, the debit order filed by the opponent on paper with the notice of appeal on 16 January 2023 was not validly filed. The filing of the debit order in an electronically processable format after expiry of the time limit of two months as set by Article 108 EPC, i.e. on 3 February 2023, was late, with the consequence that the opponent's appeal is deemed not to have been filed."
• " Where an opponent decides to avail itself of the use of a deposit account as a method for paying the relevant fees with the EPO (Article 5(2) Rules relating to fees), it is also its duty to know the relevant requirements for debiting a deposit account, including the types of debit orders and the accepted ways of filing them. The opponent's reference to its clear intention to give the order to deduct the appeal fee is not relevant under the present circumstances either."
• No request for correction under Rule 139 was filed.
• Three comments. First, the Notice of appeal was filed electronically, via Online Filing 2.0 (see the receipt), and Form 1038E was used (link), but that form did not include the debit order. The purported debit order was in the 'PDF' Notice (which does not bear a signature, so could not have been a valid paper Notice of appeal at any rate. The electronic signature is, however, in Form 1038E). Was the debit order really filed on paper?
• Second, the Board obiter holds that a request for correction is ruled out.  "A correction of the debit order in application of Rule 139 EPC presupposes that a valid debit order exists, i.e. filed in an electronically processable format. In the jurisprudence of the Boards of Appeal, correction of a debit order has only been allowed in case of errors concerning the amount of the appeal fee (see e.g.J 8/19 Reasons 2.4, T 317/19 Reasons 2.4.2, T 444/20 Reasons 2.4.3, T 2620/18 Reasons 5)."
• However, see T1146/20.
• Third. The opponent's appeal is deemed not to have been filed. The appeal fee is reimbursed. However, it may be a case of winning by losing. The OD maintained the patent in amended form; the proprietor also appealed, and the Board found the claims as granted allowable. Had the opponent validly paid the appeal fee, the decision in the patent would have been the same, and the appeal fee would not have been reimbursed.

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T1620/23 - Inventive step as new ground (?)

Key points

• The Board, in translation: "The ground for opposition of lack of inventive step pursuant to Article 100(a) in conjunction with Article 56 EPC was mentioned in the notice of opposition dated 30 August 2021, but not substantiated in accordance with Rule 76(2)(c) EPC. Rather, the opponent reserved the objection of lack of inventive step for a later stage of the proceedings, should this objection become relevant due to new requests (notice of opposition, page 11). Accordingly, no statement was made regarding the question of the lack of inventive step in claim 1 as granted."
• The claim was attacked as not novel, I understand.
• The OD found the claims to be not novel. "the opponent did not make any statements regarding the lack of inventive step of the granted patent in the further course of the opposition proceedings."
• The Board finds the claim to be novel (contrary to the OD). The opponent would like to attack the claim for lack of inventive step.
• "The opposition ground of lack of inventive step under Article 100(a) in conjunction with Article 56 EPC – which, according to the decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal G 7/95, is to be distinguished from the opposition ground of lack of novelty – was therefore not effectively raised by the opponent. The Opposition Division also did not introduce this opposition ground into the proceedings pursuant to Article 114(1) EPC. In particular, the Opposition Division's decision on claim 1 of the granted version of the patent was limited to the lack of novelty of the subject-matter. If the opposition ground is neither asserted and substantiated in the notice of opposition nor introduced into the proceedings by the Opposition Division, a "new opposition ground" exists according to G 1/95 and G 7/95, in each case reason 5.3. In appeal proceedings, such a new opposition ground may, according to decision G 10/91, only be examined with the consent of the patent proprietor."
• "The patent proprietor refused to consent to the examination of this ground for opposition. The ground for opposition of lack of inventive step may therefore not be examined in the appeal proceedings (G 10/91, principle 3). 
• Cf. T 131/01, published in the OJ: "In a case where a patent has been opposed under Article 100(a) EPC on the grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step having regard to a prior art document, and the ground of lack of novelty has been substantiated pursuant to Rule 55(c), a specific substantiation of the ground of lack of inventive step is neither necessary - given that novelty is a prerequisite for determining whether an invention involves an inventive step and such prerequisite is allegedly not satisfied - nor generally possible without contradicting the reasoning presented in support of lack of novelty. In such a case, the objection of lack of inventive step is not a fresh ground for opposition and can consequently be examined in the appeal proceedings without the agreement of the patentee"
• As discussed in  Visser's Annotated EPC, Rule 76(2):4.3.3, incidentally. 

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T 1789/22 - Two opponents, one appeals, attacks submitted by the other

Key points

• Decision of 12.12.2024, written decision issued on 19.12.2025 (Board 3.3.04, no communication under Art. 15(9) RPBA visible in the online file).
• There were two opponents. Opponent 1 appeals. Opponent 2 and the proprietor do not appeal. Opponent 1 maintains only some of the attacks in their Statement of grounds. Opponent 2 is a party as of right and uses its 'reply' to the appeal to submit additional attacks.
• "The submissions of the party as of right-opponent 2 included objections under lack of novelty in view of document D27 and lack of inventive step where documents D6 and D31 were taken to represent the closest prior art. Since the opposition division took a decision on these lines of attack in favour of the respondent, an appeal should have been filed to have these findings reviewed [*], rather than merely contesting them in the reply to the statement of grounds of appeal. However, as indicated above, the appeal of the appellant did not contest the decision in these respects, therefore these objections are outside the legal and factual framework for review by the board. Their consideration is in principle not excluded but is subject to the discretion accorded to the board under Article 114(2) EPC and Articles 12 and 13 RPBA."
• The Board's exercise of its discretion is intertwined with its decision on the subsequent letter of the appellant (opponent 1) that it agreed with the attacks (objections) of opponent 2.
• " The board notes that the appellant provided no justification for not having raised these objections with the statement of grounds of appeal, and the board cannot see any either. Moreover admitting these several additional attacks would be detrimental to procedural economy and unfair for the respondent, who relied on these parts of the appealed decision not having being contested. Accordingly, the objections filed by the appellant with this letter were not admitted into the appeal proceedings. The same applies to the corresponding objections filed by the part as of right."
• * - Note that this point is a bit tricky. Had the OD revoked the patent as novel over D1 but not inventive over D2, the opponent could not have appealed on the ground of the unfavorable reasoning on novelty (the requirement of being adversely affected of Art. 107 is determined by reference to the order of the decision, not the reasons). 
• By the same token, had the proprietor appealed as well, opponent 2 as a respondent could have submitted the attacks validly in their reply to the appeal.
• 
  
• Furthermore, opponent 1 had attacked only some of the independent claims of the set of claims held allowable by the OD in its statement of grounds, but did not attack independent claim 5 in its statement of grounds.  
• The Board holds a later-filed attack against claim 5 to be inadmissible: " As set out above, the statement of grounds of appeal defines the framework of the appeal and in the present case it did not include novelty of claim 5 of the request held allowable by the opposition division (see points 2., 5. and 5.1). Accordingly, novelty of claim 1 of the main request is not open for review by the board in this appeal proceedings."
• The Board first recalled the principle of the 'extent of the opposition'. The Board then reasoned that: "2. With regard to opposition appeal proceedings, in addition the statement of grounds of appeal determines the object of the appeal proceedings and the legal and factual framework for the review of the appealed decision by the board. In other words, the statement of grounds of appeal determines the extent to which amendment or cancellation of the appealed decision is requested (see e.g. G 9/92, Reasons 1)."
• G 9/92 r.1: "...  Proceedings under the EPC in respect of European patent applications and patents are, with some exceptions, initiated by a party. The initial "request" determines the extent of the proceedings. This is known as the principle of party disposition (ne ultra petita). The present case concerns the question whether the extent of the initial appeal, i.e. the statement in the notice of appeal, affects the extent of the subsequent proceedings, and this has to be examined systematically in conjunction with procedural law under the EPC." (emphasis added)
• G 9/92 is about reformatio in peius, i.e. the subject-matter of the patent (as amended), i.e. the order of the decision and not the reasons for the decision (there is quite some case law on this point). Opponent's 1 request in its notice of appeal was to revoke the patent in its entirety (link).  The TBA acknowledges that G 9/92 does not directly support its reasoning by citing it as 'see ... G 9/92').
• The Board's reasoning seems new to me.
• I also wonder how to reconcile it with the case law that there is no concept of partial inadmissibility of an appeal in the EPC.  
• The Board's headnote 1 is as follows: "1. ... The provisions of Article 107, second sentence, EPC guarantee a non-appealing party the right to participate to pending appeal proceedings. However, they do not provide it an autonomous right to have requests which go beyond the scope of the appeal as defined by the appellant's statement of grounds of appeal, decided by the board (as a direct consequence of G 2/91, Headnote)."
• This headnote puts it too strongly, in my view.
• The case is about a non-appealing opponent, not about a proprietor submitting claim requests. Furthermore, G2/91 is about the termination of the appeal if the appellant withdraws his appeal (heandnote 1) and the refund of the appeal fee (headnote 2).
• I think the 'reply' of the non-appealing second opponent should be treated as a case amendment under Article 13(1) RPBA, similar to the case where a respondent/appellant uses his reply under Art.12(1)(c) to the appeal of the other appellant as a supplement to his own statement of grounds (treated as an appeal case amendment under Art. 13(1), see T 2701/19).
• See also T 250/20 about cross-party reliance, referring to "established case law according to which, for example, an opponent may rely on a ground of opposition invoked by other opponents either during the opposition proceedings or during any subsequent appeal proceedings". This suggests that Opponent 2 can rely on the Statement of grounds of Opponent 1 and then submit any further attacks as case amendments under Art. 13(1).
• "By not filing an appeal, a non-appealing party has not contested the findings of the opposition division, beyond the framework of the appeal filed by the appellant."
• This does not seem correct, to the extent that it suggests the opponent as a respondent cannot introduce objections against the broader claims (sought by the proprietor as appellant) that were not decided on in the impugned decision. 

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T 0439/22 - Deleting statement from description in opposition

Key points

• This is the appeal that led to case G 1/24. After the remittal, the TBA now decides on the patent.
• The Board considers claim 1 to be not novel because a term in the claim is given a broad definition in the description. The definition given in the description is broader than the normal meaning of the term in one aspect. Under the broader definition, the claim is anticipated by a prior art document. Hence, the definition in the description is considered and adopted as decisive under Art. 54 by the Board. 
• Although the definition is broadening in one aspect, in other aspects it narrows the scope of the claim compared to the term's normal meaning. 
• In AR-1, the proprietor deletes the paragraph from the description. This causes an issue, namely an extension of the scope of protection under Article 123(3). 
• The Board: "Claim 1 contains neither explicit nor implicit features that necessarily limited the claimed aerosol-forming article to a rod-shaped configuration or, as a consequence, required the tobacco sheet to be gathered by being compressed or constricted substantially transversely to the cylindrical axis of a rod. In the absence of the definition formerly provided in paragraph [0035], claim 1 also encompasses aerosol-forming articles that are not rod-shaped, i.e. not substantially elongated in one direction and, if they are, sheets that are folded and gathered not substantially transversely to but along the cylindrical axis of the rod, like a bellows, thus extending the scope of protection compared with claim 1 of the main request." 
• "For the reasons above, the auxiliary request does not comply with the requirement of Article 123(3) EPC, and is therefore not allowable."
• In the case at hand, the definition may have been included in the description from the outset. However, the present case also serves to illustrate that if the description is amended in the pre-grant procedure, it may not always be possible to revert to the original text after grant, nor to simply delete the relevant passages of the description. 

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T 0487/23 - Withdrawal request oral proceedings

Key points

• The opponent and the proprietor both appeal. The Board issues a communication (that contains the preliminary opinion). The proprietor withdraws its request for oral proceedings within one month of the communication. The opponent withdraws its request for oral proceedings more than one month of the communication (by announcing it will not attend the oral proceedings). The oral proceedings are then cancelled.
• Is the opponent's appeal fee reimbursed at 25% under Rule 103(4)(c)??
• The Board: "As no oral proceedings took place, both conditions of Rule 103(4)(c) EPC, that "any request for oral proceedings is withdrawn ... within one month ..." and "no oral proceedings take place" (emphasis by the Board), are met(Case Law of the Boards of Appeal 11th Edition (2025), V.A.11.12, e.g. T 488/18). 3. 
• Consequently, both appeal fees are to be reimbursed at 25%."
• Rule 103 EPC is a gift that keeps on giving for bloggers and handbook writers.
• I don't think the decision is correct, by the way. According to CA/80/19, point 82, "If a request for oral proceedings is withdrawn in good time before the oral proceedings, the Board may be able to use this freed-up capacity to schedule oral proceedings in another appeal case. Such withdrawals will also allow interpretation to be cancelled in sufficient time to reduce or eliminate interpreting costs."
• In the present case, the oral proceedings could be cancelled only after the opponent withdrew its request for oral proceedings, which was more than one month after the communication. The incentive for any appellant who had requested oral proceedings should be to withdraw its request for oral proceedings within one month of the Board's communication. 
• On the other hand, the AC document is from 2019, before Vico oral proceedings became the rule. Hence, there may be less of a need for an early withdrawal of the request for oral proceedings.

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

T 0749/23 - Any embodiment as starting point (Mite composition)

Key points

• Claim 1 of AR-3 at issue  “is for a composition comprising (i) a population of individuals from a Phytoseiid mite species, (ii) a food source for the mite individuals selected from rearing prey from the suborder Astigmata and (iii) stacked carrier elements selected from millet husks, where the carrier elements comprise shelters for mite individuals”
• Documents D3/D9 describe five mite compositions comprising, as equal alternatives, the carrier elements wheat bran, buckwheat husks, rice husks, saw dust and corn cob grits”
• “The patent proprietor contended that the composition comprising rice husks of documents D3/D9 was not a suitable starting point for the assessment of inventive step for various reasons. First, they argued that buckwheat husks, rather than rice husks, should be taken as the starting point since buckwheat husks were used in the examples of documents D3/D9 and were therefore highlighted.”
• The Board: “The starting point for assessing inventive step is normally a set of features disclosed in combination in a document, typically in the form of an embodiment or example.”
• “the board considers that each of these embodiments [of the five compositions] can be used as the starting point for assessing inventive step. All embodiments are presented as suitable, and there is nothing in documents D3/D9 that would disqualify any of them. Since each embodiment can be used, the board also agrees with the opponents that the assessment of inventive step can be based on a mite composition containing rice husks as carrier elements as the starting point.”
• “the board does not concur with the patent proprietor's view [that the rice husk embodiment of D3 is not a starting point].  First, Article 56 EPC requires that an invention, having regard to the state of the art, not be obvious to a person skilled in the art. The state of the art for the purpose of considering inventive step is the entire state of the art as defined in Article 54(2) EPC, without any ranking or distinction (T 2140/22, Reasons 1.9.1).”
• “if inventive step is to be acknowledged, the claimed subject-matter must be inventive starting from any starting point in the prior art. Conversely, if the invention is obvious to the skilled person from at least one starting point, an inventive step is lacking (Case Law, I.D.3.3). Neither the EPC nor the case law of the boards stipulate that the starting point for assessing inventive step must be the entire disclosure, an example, or a preferred embodiment in the prior art. Rather, the starting point may be any disclosure in the prior art.”
• Still, it may not be obvious to a skilled person to develop a non-preferred embodiment.
• “There is also no requirement that an embodiment must be exemplified for it to be considered in the assessment of inventive step. There is, likewise, no requirement that the prior art contain any pointer, suggestion or incentive to select a particular embodiment for further development for this embodiment to qualify as the starting point in the problem solution approach”.
• “as a matter of principle and in agreement with T 2001/23 (Reasons 3), that if the subject-matter of a claim is found to lack an inventive step starting from a particular disclosure, as is the case here (see below), it is not possible to establish inventive step by proposing that the assessment be started from a different starting point.”
• The Board then distinguishes T 1126/19 on the facts.
• “Third, G 1/23 does not support the patent proprietor's argument that the skilled person is the relevant point of reference in selecting the starting point for the inventive step analysis. Points 93 to 95 of decision G 1/23 are concerned with the impact on novelty and inventive step of accessible but not fully reproducible products which the Enlarged Board of Appeal accepted as being part of the prior art. According to these considerations, the relevance of such a product for assessing inventive step, namely its suitability as a starting point or secondary source of information, depends on the available information associated with the product, i.e. it depends on what is disclosed to the skilled person.”
• “ The Enlarged Board of Appeal [in G 1/23] did not make any finding that the choice of starting point in the problem-solution approach requires motivation by the skilled person. In the case in hand, all carrier elements disclosed in documents D3/D9 are available, and all can be used. Indeed, the patent proprietor never argued that rice husks would be obviously defective or not enabled.”
• In view of T 2759/17: “In the case in hand, as correctly noted by opponent 2, the starting point for assessment of inventive step, namely a composition comprising rice husks, is disclosed for the same purpose as the compositions comprising other carrier materials disclosed in documents D3/D9, namely the rearing of predatory mites, which is also the purpose to which the patent is directed. The board concludes that in the case in hand, a composition comprising rice husks would also be a realistic starting point under the approach set out in T 2759/17.”
• “The patent proprietor's assertion that documents D3/D9 did not disclose a list of equal alternatives to the skilled person is based on the results in Example II of the [opposed] patent, in which millet husks performed better than bran. Since the closest prior art must be assessed from the skilled person's point of view on the day before the filing or priority date valid for the claimed invention, the assertion must be rejected for this reason alone.”
• One would expect that, starting from the embodiment of D3 with rice husk as the carrier element, the distinguishing feature would lie in the other components of the composition. However, the difference is that the patent claims the use of millet husk as the stacked carrier elements. The Board does not acknowledge any technical effect of that difference. “the patent describes that millet husks have a sheltering effect in comparison with the non-sheltering carriers wheat bran and vermicullite (paragraphs [0005] and [0006], experiments I and II). The patent does not indicate any advantageous effect of millet husks over rice husks.” A post-published document was not admitted, as filed late (namely, in appeal).
• The patent is revoked.
• “The objective technical problem is the provision of alternative carrier elements for a mite composition comprising a population of a phytoseiid predatory mite species and a factitious host population which comprises at least one species selected from the family of the Carpoglyphidae.”
• I think a key question could have been whether the OTP was indeed simply providing an alternative, given that the advantages of risk husk were unrecognised in the prior art document D3.
  
  
• Partiality of the OD?
• “opponent 2 submitted that the chairman of the opposition division stated during oral proceedings that in coming to the conclusion that auxiliary request 3 was inventive over document D9 as the closest prior art, it was also taken into account that the claims were restricted to particular mites and that, from the perspective of a work-around, there were sufficient possibilities.”
• The Board dismisses the objection on the ground that the reasoning about the workaround is not part of the OD’s written decision. Furthermore, “an objection on the ground of suspected partiality before the department of first instance can be disregarded if it is not raised immediately after the party concerned becomes aware of the reason for the objection (G 5/91, Reasons 4 [...]”

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.