Key points
- Claim 1 is directed to a "venous access port assembly" with a radiopaque markings that comprises the letters "CT", in claim 10 these markings are printed on the surface.
- " the access port includes radiopaque markings (60) applied to a surface of the housing base (28), which include indicia (70) that comprise the letters "CT"."
- "Being radiopaque, these markings can be discerned on an X-ray and thereby provide information about the nature or characteristics of the access port assembly once it has been implanted in the patient."
- " D1 does not directly and unambiguously disclose at least radiopaque indicia that comprise the letters "CT"."
- I understand that D1 discloses radiopaque indicia.
- As to inventive step: "the letters "CT" have no mirror symmetry. As explained in paragraph [0004] of the contested patent, these letters could, for example, be applied in a mirror-image orientation to the outwardly facing bottom surface of the port housing. In this case, they would appear right-side up on an X-ray when the port is viewed from above, and, conversely, mirror-inverted when the port is viewed from below. Due to the lack of mirror symmetry, the way the letters "CT" appear on an X-ray is uniquely correlated with the orientation of the port."
- " the objective technical problem starting from D1 [is] to enable a practitioner X-raying an implanted port to unambiguously determine the orientation of the port, including whether the port is being viewed from above or below."
- " D1 does not address the technical problem of determining the port orientation. It only discloses the alphanumeric message as having the purpose of identifying the port type []. Thus, in the absence of any teaching or suggestion in D1 that the message could be used to provide information about the port orientation, the person skilled in the art starting from D1 would have no motivation, even using their common general knowledge, to specifically select the alphanumeric message so that it has no mirror symmetry, let alone so that it specifically comprises the letters "CT"."
- As a comment, this decision illustrates that features defining presentations of information can contribute to inventive step namely if they have a technical effect.
EPO
The link to the decision is provided after the jump.
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