T 0350/13 - Implicit consent fresh ground

Key points

• A fresh ground of opposition in appeal can only be admitted with the consent of the patent proprietor. An initial substantive rebuttal of the new ground does not amount to implicit consent. In any case, the consent can be later denied by the proprietor.
• The Board appears to indicate that the date of an appealed decision of the OD is that of the written decision, not that of the oral proceedings. 
• The name of the professional representative of a party is sufficient for identifying the appellant in view of admissibility.  Another Board said recently the opposite In T 2561/11, at 2.4 (decision date is that of oral proceedings, not that of written decision). 

T 0350/13 - link

Reasons for the Decision

1. Admissibility of the opponent's appeal

1.1 According to Rule 99(1)(a) EPC the notice of appeal shall contain the name and address of the appellant. According to established case law of the Boards of Appeal the requirements of Rule 99(1)(a) EPC are satisfied if the notice of appeal contains sufficient information for identification of the party (cf. T 624/09). Furthermore, deficiencies concerning the indication of the appellant's name and address do not necessarily need to be remedied within the time limit pursuant to Article 108 EPC, but can be remedied later following an invitation under R 101(2) EPC (cf. T 2330/10).

T 2154/11 - Breadth does not diminish clarity

Key points

• The decision under appeal relieD on the finding that the claims of the main request did not comply with Article 84 EPC due to the "extreme breadth" of the claim wording. 
• "  It is established jurisprudence of the boards of appeal that the clarity of a claim is not diminished by the mere breadth of a term of art contained in it if the meaning of such term - either per se or in the light of the description - is unambiguous for a person skilled in the art ([CLBA] II.A.3.3)." 
• " Hence, the objections of the examining division that the expressions "metadata describing an event", "taking", "connecting" were broad and embraced well-known activities are not considered per se a valid reason for a lack of clarity." 
• " Similarly, the fact that some of these method steps may be understood to refer to "mental acts" or "normal human actions" is no valid reason for a finding of lack of clarity as long as these steps do not give rise to ambiguity, as in the case at hand. If a method step can be interpreted to refer to a normal human activity, then this assessment should be taken into account for novelty and inventive step."
• The Board accepts as technical effect of the distinguishing feature that " information about similar events in other episodes of the television program is retrieved from a website" . The Board does not expressly discuss why this feature is technical. 

Reasons for the Decision

1. The appeal is admissible.

2. The present application

The present application relates to a method and system for retrieving information about television programs.

The invention aims at providing more significant information about the program such as its history or background. Information about a particular character's role in the program, a description of a particular program in a series, a history of a series or a summary of other episodes may be retrieved using one or more tags that provide links to dedicated websites [].

T 1630/11 - Modelling system not inventive

Key points

• A claim for making, on a computer, a model of multi-processor system, and simulating the model, was found to lack inventive step.
• " The major part of claim 1 is thus concerned with the expressions of a graphical programming environment which were found in T 1539/09 (reasons 5) not to contribute to inventive step (see also T 2270/10, reasons 7), even if, as the appellant argues, it "enables users to" develop the program in question "in a convenient and efficient way" [] and simplifies the modelling or the model ..." .
• "The board follows its earlier jurisprudence according to which modifications to a programming language or system that enable the programmer to develop a program with greater ease and thus, presumably, speed and accuracy, do not make a technical contribution to the art." 

EPO T 1630/11 -  link 

III. Claim 1 reads as follows:
"A method for simulating a multi-processor system in an electronic device that provides a graphical modeling environment using a deployment model and a functional model for the multi-processor system, the method comprising:
providing a functional model of a multi-processor system in the graphical modeling environment, the functional model including one ore more functional units;
creating a deployment model for the functional model in the graphical modeling environment, the deployment model comprising one or more processing units represented by node blocks interconnected via an inter process communication (IPC) channel, wherein:
the IPC channel comprises a shared memory, a bus or a broadcast medium, that exchanges data between one or more processing units represented by the node blocks, and

T 0377/14 - No bonus effect

Key points

• In the present case, the opponent argued essentially that the achieved technical effect was a mere bonus effect of an otherwise obvious combination, and therefore could not contribute to inventive step. 
• The Board does not agree. " It is established jurisprudence that the patent proprietor (...) can rely on a technical effect in formulating the objective technical problem, if it is proven to have been credibly obtained by the distinguishing feature(s). Only if this is not the case can the problem be reformulated in a less ambitious way as the provision of an alternative. Arguing the other way round, like the [opponent], and saying that the provision of an alternative is obvious and that therefore any effect has to be disregarded as being a mere bonus effect, would turn the problem-and-solution approach on its head, and thus is not permissible. The cited decision T 936/96 is not relevant; it concerns a different question, namely whether, starting from a technical problem defined in the patent, an additional problem invoked by the proprietor and based on new experimental evidence qualifies merely as a bonus effect." 
• As a comment, the Guidelines state that : "However, if, having regard to the state of the art, it would already have been obvious for a skilled person to arrive at something falling within the terms of a claim, for example due to a lack of alternatives thereby creating a "one-way street" situation, the unexpected effect is merely a bonus effect which does not confer inventiveness on the claimed subject-matter (see T 231/97 and T 192/82). " (GL G-VII 10.2)

EPO T 0377/14 - link

As set out above, E2 does not disclose the feature of claim 1 of a multilayer polymeric material, produced as a blown film with no subsequent lamination step, in combination with the thickness required by this claim.

2.1.2 The respondent explained that the objective problem to be solved in view of E2 was the reduction of distortions created in the longitudinal weld or join during the welding process.

2.1.3 As a solution to this problem, the invention proposes the collapsible tube container of claim 1 with a side wall formed from a multilayer polymeric material, the side wall comprising a longitudinal weld or join and the multilayer polymeric material having a thickness of between 150 and 350 microns, characterised in that the multilayer polymeric material is produced as a blown film with no subsequent lamination step.

2.1.4 It needs to be examined whether this problem has been credibly solved over E2.

T 1296/13 - Non-working embodiments

Key points

• The literal claim wording encompasses embodiments which do not provide the invoked technical effect. The Board rejects the argument of the proprietor, that such embodiments are excluded in view of the description. Article 69 EPC does not help for inventive step.
• Because the claim wording allows for embodiments that do not provide the invoked technical effect, that effect is not acknowledged. The objective technical problem is therefore providing alternative formulations.

EPO T 1296/13 - link

3.4 Gemäß Patentinhaber besteht die objektive technische Aufgabe darin, ein absorbierendes Polymerisat bereitzustellen, welches eine vorteilhafte Kombination aus Retention und Permeabilität, nämlich einen TB Wert von mindestens 25 und einen SFC-Wert von mindestens 30, aufweist. Es wird vom Patentinhaber jedoch anerkannt, dass diese Aufgabe nur dann gelöst wird, wenn das Polymerisat unter gleichzeitiger Anwesenheit der Komponenten e) (1,3-Dioxolan-2-on) und f) (Aluminiumsalz) oberflächennachvernetzt wurde. Dies wird auch durch Absatz [0064] und Vergleichsbeispiel 14 des Streitpatents bestätigt. In diesem Vergleichsbeispiel wird das kommerzielle Produkt Favor**(®) SXM 6860, welches bereits mit organischem Oberflächennachvernetzer nachvernetzt ist, in einem nachgelagerten Schritt zusätzlich mit Aluminiumsulfat nachvernetzt. Das so erhaltene Produkt weist einen sehr niedrigen SFC-Wert von 15 auf und löst somit die vom Patentinhaber formulierte Aufgabe nicht.

3.5 Vom Patentinhaber wurde argumentiert, dass solche, die von ihm genannte Aufgabe nicht lösende Ausführungsformen, d. h. Produkte die sequentiell zuerst mit 1,3-Dioxolan-2-on (Komponente e)) und dann mit Aluminiumsalz (Komponente f)) oberflächennachvernetzt wurden, nicht unter den Wortlaut des Anspruchs 1 fielen. Diesem Argument kann sich die Kammer nicht anschließen. Anspruch 1 verlangt nur, dass mit Komponente e) und f) beschichtet und nachvernetzt worden ist. Dies schließt Ausführungsformen ein, bei denen zuerst mit Komponente e) beschichtet und nachvernetzt wird und erst anschließend das so erhaltene Produkt mit Komponente f) einem zweiten Beschichtungs- und Nachvernetzungsschritt unterzogen wird.

Vom Patentinhaber wurde zusätzlich noch vorgebracht, dass auf der Grundlage des Absatzes [0064] der Beschreibung des Streitpatents Anspruch 1 dahingehend beschränkend auszulegen sei, dass mit beiden Komponenten e) und f) beschichtet und dann nachvernetzt wird. Auch diesem Argument kann sich die Kammer nicht anschließen. Insbesondere liefert Artikel 69 EPÜ und das dazugehörige Protokoll keine Grundlage dafür, Ausführungsformen aus einem Anspruch auszuschließen - vorliegend die sequentielle Oberflächennachvernetzung mit organischem Oberflächennachvernetzer und anschließend mit Aluminiumsalz - die unter den Wortlaut des Anspruchs fallen (T 223/05, Schlagwort und Punkt 3.5).

Somit umfasst Anspruch 1 Ausführungsformen, die die vom Patentinhaber genannte Aufgabe nicht lösen. Daher muss die objektive technische Aufgabe weniger anspruchsvoll als die Bereitstellung eines alternativen absorbierenden Polymerisats definiert werden.

T 0820/14 - Reviewing Rule 137(3) discretion

Key points

• The ED gave five grounds for not admitting the 2nd Auxiliary Request under Rule 137(3) EPC. In particular, claim 1 would be based on  non-searched original claim 10, lack unity of invention with the searched claims, and be non-convergent.
• The Board finds that feature added to claim 1 should have been searched, as it is a foreseeable implementation of the general features of original claim 1. Hence, the feature in fact not having been searched (i.e. not paying additional search fees during the international phase), has no effect. 
• The Board comments that the finding of unity (and 14 inventions) with the ISR was not sufficiently substantiated. The Board holds that lack of unity can not be based on the allegation that each of the dependent claims solves a different problem. 
• The Board agrees that the 2nd Auxiliary Request is not convergent and not prima facie allowable, and that therefore that the Examining Division could correctly decide to not admit it.
• The Board finds that it has a discretion to nevertheless admit the request into the procedure, despite G 7/93 stating essentially that the Board should only do so in case of abuse of the discretion in the first instance procedure. The Board finds that G 7/93 only uses " should", that a substantive review is desirable, and that it agrees with T 971/11. 
• The Board then finds that the 2nd Auxiliary Request lacks inventive step. 

EPO T 0820/14 -  link

(decision omitted)

T 0313/13 - Functional feature thus clear

Key points

• The Board finds the expression "nearly abutting" in the claims to be clear in this examination appeal, because it is considered as a "functional feature".

EPO T 0313/13 - link


3. Article 84 EPC 1973
The appellant has introduced the expression "nearly abutting" several times in the amended independent claims. This expression was objected to for lack of clarity, because it was vague (see point 2.2 of the decision under appeal).


The board notes that the wording of a claim has to be clear in itself (see T 454/89 of 11 March 1991).


In view of the passages of the description referred to by the appellant, in particular [0052] of the application as filed, the board interprets "nearly abutting" as a functional feature.


Paragraph [0052] reads "... a distance of separation for nearly abutting key structures corresponds to a distance that is of the order of a tolerance level for assembling the housing and interconnecting components or layers (excluding the actual keypad)) [sic] to make the keyboard effective. That is to say, as close together as the manufacturing process can achieve whilst reliably providing independent movement of one key structure relative to an adjacent key structure" (emphasis added).
Taking the expression "nearly abutting" to be a functional feature, the board considers the independent claims comprising these words to fulfil the requirements of Article 84 EPC 1973.