Double Agent In The Room - T 1693/10

The representative appelant in the oral hearing for the case T 1693/10  took the defendant's representative by surprise by appearing in the company of new colleague who had previously worked in the same firm and same department as defendant's representative.  According to the appelant, he had access to the files and to internal information and his presence was a substantial procedural violation.

Though the alleged double-agent agreed to not saying anything and to only assist the representative as an "accompanying representative", this rendered his former colleague sufficiently nervous to requset that his former colleague be excluded from the hearing and to raise an objection under Rule 106EPC otherwise.

The Board was unimpressed by the presence of the double-agent and pointed out that it was not the body to decide on the epi code of conduct which would be applicable in the case of an eventual conflict of interest.

Novelty on a mental level does not count T 2191/13

The decision T 2191/13 relates to a two-component adhesive system wherein the amount of one of the components B is supposed to be adapted to the respective substrates and processing conditions.

The two-component adhesive system as such was disclosed in the closest prior art but disclosure on whether or not the amount of component B was adapted to anything was lacking.

The board found that the claim was not novel nonetheless. The headnote (in an unofficial translation) reads:

A difference to the prior art existing only on a mental level, which is exclusively based on the existence of an insight, cannot render the subject-matter a claim novel unless the insight is reflected in the technical features of the claimed subject-matter (points 12.3 and 12.4 of the reasons)

The board adds that accepting that features of this type would have a limiting effect would require the assessment of insights an alleged infringer had when selecting component B and the amount thereof when judging on the infringement.  

EPO - Letters to the Administrative Council

The Administrative Council (AC) of the EPO has met yesterday and continues its meeting today. The IPKat reports on four remarkable letters which have been sent to the AC in preparation of the meeting, wherein the stakeholders note that the acceptance of the EPO's proposal to reform the Boards of Appeal have has been (wilfully?) overstated when President Batistelli has presented the results of the user consultation in CA 98/15. The move to directly address the AC rather than relying on the president as the spokesperson is a clear sign of increasing mistrust between the president and the boards of appeal.

The recent discussion and events have shown that a reform aiming at increasing the perception of independence of the Boards of Appeal has to avoid any direct or indirect influence of the president of the office on the management of the Boards of Appeal. As correctly stated in the long-awaited letter of epi to the AC, the President should abstain from exercising control on the appointment or re-appointment of the board members and on the budget of the Boards of Appeal.

Above all, this blogger concurs with the epi in that the complete recruitment stop has to be removed immediately to keep the Boards Operational and to avoid a further increasing backlog. Operational Boards of Appeal with independent, experienced and motivated members, sufficient rooms to hold oral proceedings and staff support are a core ingredient of the functioning of the European Patent System to be administered by the AC.  

When Does Presentation of Information Count for Inventiveness?

The decision T 0336/14 offers new insights on the treatment of "mixed inventions" at the EPO.

The headnote is as follows:

In the assessment of inventive step of a claim which comprises technical and non-technical features ("mixed invention") and in which the non-technical features relate to cognitive content presented to the user of a graphical user interface (GUI), i.e. relate to "what" is presented rather than "how" something is presented, it has to be analysed whether the GUI together with the content presented  credibly assists the user in performing a technical task (related to "why" that content is presented) by means of a continued and/or guided human-machine interaction process (see point 1.2).

The board summarizes the case-law and comes to the conclusion that

In other words, it has to be established whether the information presented constitutes "technical information", which credibly enables the user to properly operate the underlying technical system and thus has a technical effect, or rather "non-technical information", which is exclusively aimed at the mental activities of the system user as the final addressee.

In this blogger's view, the latter offers a quite handy and reasonable test which will surely be frequently cited in examination procedures.

Communiqué on 142 meeting on EPO Administrative council

The report on the meeting of the Administrative Council of the EPO has now been published here as follows:

142nd meeting of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation (Munich, 10 and 11 December 2014)

The Administrative Council held its 142nd meeting in Munich on 10 and 11 December 2014 with Jesper Kongstad, Director General of the Danish Patent Office, in the chair.

After the Chairman's report on the last meetings of the Board of the Administrative Council, the President of the European Patent Office, Benoît Battistelli, presented his activities report. The Council expressed its clear satisfaction.

The Council then exchanged information on strategic matters within the Organisation and on the social climate and addressed a particular issue concerning alleged misconduct by a Council appointee under Article 11 (3) EPC, reported separately on this website.

Further, the Council proceeded with a series of appointments and re-appointments to positions in the boards of appeal.

Later, the Council heard status reports on the Unitary patent and related developments as well as on substantive patent law harmonisation.

Lastly, the Council adopted a reform of the career system as well as the draft budget for 2015.

Council Secretariat

No surprise so far. The rumors that the new career system has been adopted are confirmed. The new career system is supposed reduce (or entirely eliminate) the effect of seniority on salary increases and put a strong focus on productivity. According to a letter published via the FOSS blog run by Florian Müller, this is likely to affect the quality of the patents delivered by the EPO.

This blogger thinks that a more incentive-based salary system is a very good idea as long as the quality of the work remains an essential factor. However, the quality of the work of patent examiners is difficult to quantify insofar as the substantial part thereof is concerned. Quality management systems tend to put an excessive weight on factors which can be easily "measured" and to neglect other, more  relevant factors. Is the recent trend showing an increasing number of EPO examination procedures limited to purely formal issues without ever entering into a deeper a discussion on the technical merits of the invention a result of an unbalanced incentive system?

Dangers of Copy & Paste



The fist embodiment

In the case T395/13, the technical board of appeal of the EPO had to deal with a case where the appellant - who had not participated in the oral proceedings of the 1st instance -  argued that the decision was not sufficiently reasoned.

According to the appellant,

Sections 11.4 and 11.5 of the decision under appeal did not relate to the present case, but could instead be seen to have been copied from the decision in one of the parallel cases involving the same parties and opposition division (specifically the opposition against European patent No. XXXXXXXXX). The document referred to in those sections as E2 was clearly not that identified as E2 in the section "Facts and submissions" in the decision under appeal, but was instead the document now referred to as E2A. That these sections were not relevant to the present case was also apparent from the fact that it used terminology (specifically the expression "local client printer module") which appeared only in the parallel case, not in this one.

 The board adds that:

It is also clear that ..... sections 11.4 and 11.5 are exact copies of the corresponding sections of the decision taken by the same opposition division in the parallel opposition procedure against the European patent No. XXXXXXX, including even the repetition of mistakes (such as "The fist embodiment" in section 11.5.2). (emphasis added, cf. reasons, item 2.1)

The decision was set aside and remitted to the 1st instance.

EPO - News from the Administrative Council

The Administrative council has published a "Communique on decisions taken by the Administrative Council at its 142nd meeting concerning senior employees and appointments and reappointments to the Boards of Appeal" as follows:

The Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation held its 142nd meeting in Munich on 10 and 11 December 2014 under the chairmanship of Jesper KONGSTAD (DK).

The Council addressed a number of points concerning senior employees and the Boards of Appeal. Specifically, the Council addressed disciplinary arrangements applicable to senior employees appointed by the Council under Article 11 (1)(2)(3) EPC and, noting its obligations under Article 11(4) EPC, agreed to set up a Council Disciplinary Committee.

The Council took this opportunity to reiterate its full endorsement of and support for the principle of independence of the members of the Boards of Appeal, as specifically set out in Article 23 EPC and generally embodied in internationally recognised principles of judicial independence.

The Council also made four re-appointments of members of the Enlarged Board of Appeal and Chairmen and legally qualified members of the of Boards of Appeal pursuant to Art 11(3) EPC, as well as a total of twelve appointments and re-appointments of legally qualified members of the Enlarged Board of Appeal pursuant to Art 11(5) EPC.

On a proposal from the President of the Office, the Council addressed and carefully considered a particular issue concerning alleged misconduct by a Council appointee under Article 11 (3) EPC. As a precautionary and conservative measure without anticipating any further steps which may ensue, the Council unanimously decided to suspend the person concerned from active duty on full salary until 31 March 2015. The Council requested the investigation to be completed as soon as possible, in order to allow it to decide on the next steps. The Council expressed its concern at an incident unique in the history of EPO.

Details of the appointments and reappointments as well as of other decisions taken by the Council at this meeting will be published separately.

Council Secretariat

 The setup of a council disciplinary committee is a step which serves to ensure the separation of powers. However, it is to be noted that the main concerns of the demonstrating employees (new career plans, internal disciplinary regime for employees other than those appointed by the AC) are not at all addressed.

This blogger wonders whether the "senior employees" other than the members of the boards of appeal (the employees appointed by the Council under Article 11 (1)(2) EPC are the president and the vice president(s)) are mentioned only for the sake of completeness or whether this might indicate that any sort of investigations with regard to the activities of these persons have been discussed or are on the first schedule of the new council disciplinary committee?

Wind of Change at the EPO?

About 1500 or 1600 individuals (according to the organizers) including EPO employees, sympathizing professional representatives, curious bloggers and chimeras of these categories have demonstrated in front of the EPO's Isar building today, where the meeting of the Administrative Council was about to take place.

The EPO management contributed to the event by calling the police to make sure that the demonstrators did not enter the EPO premises but rather stayed on the walkway.

Representatives of the staff committee made various proposals on how to make sure that the fundamental human rights including the freedom of speech and the guarantee of judicial review are respected. One proposal was to establish an independent committee reviewing the managerial decisions for this purpose, the other one was that the EPC should access the European Council.

For more background information, see here and here.

EPO in Unrest - Ask Your Local Council Member

The IP Kat and others (e.g the Enlarged Board of Appeal here) have expressed their concerns about the judicial independence of the EPO Technical Boards of Appeal after the news that a board member had been forced to leave his office (and was prohibited from entering the EPO premises) here and here (see. here, and here).

Readers who share these concerns should contact their local council member prior to the meeting later this week. Their addresses can be  found  here.
In case anybody needs inspiration for what to say, a sample letter by Tilman Müller-Stoy (Bardehle Pagenberg) can be found here.

Does Withdrawing a Main Request Imply that Admissibility of Appeal Is Accepted?

After a first part of the oral proceedings in the opposition underlying the case T2157/10, the Opposition Division had expressed its preliminary opinion that the opposition was considered admissible and then turned to the substantive issues of the case.

The patentee then withdrew its main request and made one of its previous auxiliary requests its new main request. The patent was then maintained in amended form as requested proprietor.

 

The latter was, however, not satisfied with the decision and filed an appeal, the admissibility of which was obviously questionable because one might wonder if the appellant was not adversely affected by the decision.

 

The discussion in the oral proceedings in the first instance is summarized by the Technical Board of Appeal as follows (items [1.2] - [1.4]):

During those oral proceedings, the proprietor also raised the issue of whether the opposition was admissible (see minutes, p. 2, 7th par.). After discussion with the parties and deliberation, the opposition division stated that it "consider[ed]" the opposition to be admissible (see minutes p. 3, 5th par.). 

The board takes this to mean that the opposition division expressed its conclusion on this issue, but did not pronounce a decision at this point. Thereafter, the minutes (p. 3, pars. 2 and 3 from the bottom) report that "[t]he chairman asked the proprietor to clarify the requests on file: the rejection of the opposition or to maintain the patent in amended form" and that "[t]he proprietor said that his request was to maintain in amended form."

Hence, the interlocutory decision of the opposition division found in favour of the highest-ranking substantive request of the appellant.  

Moreover, in the board's view, the minutes must be understood to imply that the proprietor no longer requested the opposition division to find the opposition to be inadmissible. Any request to this effect which may have been made before was thereby withdrawn. (emphasis added).

This is how the patentee conceived this situation (cf. item [2.2]):

The subsequent request by the chairman of the opposition division that the proprietor clarify its request was exclusively related to substantive requests. It was clear at the time that what the proprietor was asked to clarify was on the basis of which sets of claims it requested that the patent be maintained. It was also clear, so the argument, that by making the substantive request that the patent be maintained in amended form, and irrespective of the fact that the basis for the amended patent was labelled "main request", the proprietor did not intend to withdraw its procedural request that the opposition be found inadmissible. Rather, maintenance in amended form was requested merely if the opposition division decided that the opposition was admissible.

The board of appeal rejected the appeal as inadmissible. This blogger is wondering whether this result could have been avoided if the patentee had expressed its intentions more clearly: Is it possible to appeal the decision to hold the opposition admissible without at the same time requesting the maintenance of the patent as granted?




 

On counting the number of inventions - T129/14

How many branches does this tree have?
Photo by Pablo D. Flores

The decision T129/14 deals with the algebra of counting the number of inventions in a single European Patent Application.

While the substantive examination procedure deals with the question whether there is one invention or zero inventions (wherein the applicant tends to advocate in favour of the greater among these numbers) the situation is opposite in the search procedure. In this early stage of the procedure, the examiner may, under certain circumstances, limit his search to the invention first mentioned in the claims. A search for further inventions is carried out only upon payment of a further search fee (this option having been introduced for the case of EURO-PCT applications only as of November 1, 2014).

The case of so-called non-unitiy a posteriori can be understood by adopting the illustrative image of a "claim tree", the examiner should start searching with claim 1 as the stem of the tree. When having found a document destroying novelty up to a branching point where the claim tree splits into different branches, these branches should be identified by defining "special technical features" shared by the claims being a part of the branch under consideration (Rule 44 EPC) and the examiner should then follow the branch first mentioned in the claims for the further search and invite the applicant to pay additional search fees for the other inventions. Failure to do so leads to foreclosure of the unsearched subject-matter for the further prosecution (Rule 137(5) EPC).

In the case underlying the decision T129/14, the examiner had  adopted a particularly captious approach to counting the number of inventions in the application. The examiner found prior art destroying the novelty of claims 1, 5, 14 and 15 as originally filed, which he considered to constitutethe unitary group of inventions first mentioned in the claims, and concluded that these claims cannot contain any special technical features in the sense of Rule 44 EPC which could potentially be shared with other claims. Amendments relating to subject-matter of claims other than those mentioned above were rejected as relating to unsearched subject-matter.

In the picture of the claim tree, the examiner reverses the tree and defines the stem as a further branch and magically increases the number of inventions by one.

Luckily, the board of appeal did not follow this approach. Claims which are anticipated by the prior art cannot include features which define a contribution the claimed invention makes over the prior art as stipulated in R 44 EPC. The application was remitted to the first instance and the appeal fee was refunded as a matter of equity in view of the fundamental procedural violations.

Thanks to Laurent Teyssèdre for having spotted this decision in his French blog here.

No difference between "to contain" and "to comprise" - T 0056/08

The words "comprising", "consisting of" or "containing" count among the most discussed words in the patent-related case-law.

In the decision T 0056/08 here, the respondent/opponent had argued that an amendment from "to comprise" to "to contain" infringes Art. 123(2) EPC.

Respondent's argument that the verb "to contain" has a more restrictive meaning than the verb "to comprise", the Board would point out that the general meaning of the verb "to contain" is "to have in it", "to hold", "to include", "to encompass" or "to comprise". 

Therefore, the Respondent's argument cannot be accepted.

No Copy & Paste of Preliminary Opinion - T 1312/10

In the decision on the basis of the appeal T 1312/10, the Examining Division of the EPO had merely copied the reasoning given annex to the summons to oral proceedings and did not discuss the additional arguments filed in response thereto in arriving at its decision to refuse the application.

The Board judges that this constitutes a substantial procedural violation and ordered that the appeal fee be refunded although a refund was not even requested. The Board of appeal was very assiduous not only in this point but further introduced new documents D4 and D5 into the procedure (wherein D5 was not even prior art) but finally found that the claim 1 complies with the substantial requirements of the EPC.

What is a "Normal" Dog Biting Event? - T 718/08

The main request in an appeal against the decision of the opposition division to revoke a patent amongst other grounds on Article 100(b) EPC as the patent did not disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by the person skilled in the art.

Claim 1 of the main request reads:

A chewable product (40) capable of enhancing dental hygiene in a pet, comprising a continuous phase (44) and a discontinuous phase (46) characterised in that the phase proportions are such that a force of at least 100 Newtons is required to penetrate a surface of the product (40).

In the Auxiliary request, the it was claimed that the force required to penetrate the product is greater than expected to be exerted by such pet during a normal biting event.

The methods for measuring the penetration force given in the specification made reference to a "specially constructed model tooth" of and an analysis system "designed to simulate the biting action of a dog's teeth" and to "a specially designed cone-shaped penetrometry probe of length 12mm" pushed into the product "at a rate of 2mm/s". Further geometrical details such as the cone angle of the model tooth or the probe were lacking.

The board discusses various attempts of the patentee to provide evidence for the fact that the skilled person will be able to derive suitable values for the cone angle as a matter of routine and concludes that the skilled person is unable to determine the missing cone angle on the basis of the patent and his common general knowledge. Failing a specific value of the cone angle he will be unable to reliably measure penetration force and thus reproduce the claimed invention. The invention according to the claims of the main request is thus insufficiently disclosed (Articles 83, 100(b) EPC).

This is a good example of the inescapable enablement-disclosure-trap where a drafting error turns out to be fatal many years after filing.

Patentability of Cinematographic Techniques in Multi-User Games

The decision T1259/08 relates to a rejected patent application based on the problem of network delays in multi-user games.

The idea was to mask the delay by creating a distracting effect that diverts the user from the parts of the application affected by a network delay. The effect is created using a "cinematographic technique" to manipulate an image displayed to the user, sounds supplied to the user, or tactile feedback to the user. The cinematographic technique may be, for example: zooming in or zooming out; a dummy object blocking the view; an "interlude"; or switching to another scene.

In the embodiment, when either machine detects an unacceptable network delay, it switches to a close-up (zoomed in) representation of the avatars showing their facial expressions but not the blows that are affected by the delay.

The board of appeal applies a broad interpretation of "cinematographic technique" such that the latter includes so-called time warping  known from the prior art. Whether or not the time warping technique diverts the user is considered irrelevant because this feature relates to human perception.

The board further notes that the solution would not have been inventive either:

The appellant stated that the technical problem was how to deal with network delay. The technical solution was to divert the user with the effect. However, since as discussed above, this solution is a matter of human perception, it follows that it would be non-technical. Furthermore, it also follows that it would be unpredictable whether such a subjective feature would actually solve the technical problem. In this respect, the invention is somewhat analogous to showing a video clip to somebody waiting for a lift to arrive, which is also using a cinematographic technique to deal with a delay. Thus, there would be no technical solution to the problem.

 

Farewell Handwritten Amendments at the EPO

As of January 1, 2014, the EPO does no longer accept submissions including handwritten amendments on replacement sheets of the application documents. Under Rule 86 EPC this also applies to amendments in patent specification documents in opposition proceedings.

This may be of particular relevance if the patentee wishes to submit new requests in the course of oral proceedings. According to the FAQ page:

Documents containing handwritten amendments may be used as a basis for discussion during oral proceedings until agreement is reached on the final text of the patent; a final decision granting a patent or maintaining it in amended form may only be taken on the basis of a document which is not formally deficient.


In order to assist the parties in such circumstances, the Office provides technical facilities that will allow compliance with the formal requirements while ensuring a smooth conduct of the oral proceedings at the same time.

The author of this note has always appreciated the craftsmanship involved in preparing artful collages of paper snippets and spiced op with handwritten notes and the smell of glue in the attorney's rooms. The FAQ page further explains how the new and sterile reality will look like:

Parties using their own laptops or other electronic devices to prepare amendments may rely on the EPO’s public Wireless Network, which is widely available in public areas, or printers available in the EPO. 

For parties who do not use their own electronic equipment, the EPO provides for PCs and printers in the attorney rooms as well as in many rooms used for oral proceedings. Additionally each attorney’s room is equipped with at least two PCs and one local printer. The local printer can be either used via the EPO PC or an external laptop which can be connected via USB cable to the local printer allowing direct use. 

Additionally EPO LAN printers allow for printing PDF documents directly from a standard USB stick (FAT32 filesystem). It is sufficient to stick a USB stick into the USB port of the printer on the left-hand side of the front panel. Then using the touchscreen control panel, select “Print from USB” and choose a PDF document to be printed.
State-of-the-art text editing software (such as MS Word, OpenOffice, etc.) provides for a possibility to directly save any document as a PDF file, which then can be stored on a USB stick and printed from the LAN printers.

 

When Does a Simulation Step Contribute to the Technical Character of a Method?

Oliver Randl has posted an interesting decision (T 1265/09) relating to an application claiming a method for generating schedules in a call-center. The method basically determines staffing requirements split up in different skill group and "adapts" the settings iteratively as a function of the result of a call-handling simulation.

The EPO Board of Appeal refers to the decosion T 1227/05 in an attempt to define necessary conditions to be met by a simulation step in a method to contribute to the technical character of the method.

The board derives from T 1227/05 that:

The board held that beyond its implementation, a procedural step may contribute to the technical character of a method only to the extent that it serves a technical purpose of the method and, further, it held that a simulation of a circuit subject to 1/f noise constitutes an adequately defined technical purpose for a computer-implemented method, provided that the method is functionally limited to that technical purpose (Reasons, [3.1]). The claimed methods were held to meet these conditions because, firstly, they concerned an adequately defined class of technical items, and, secondly, the stated purpose, ..., was established in the further steps of the claimed methods, .... thereby functionally limiting the claims to the simulation of a noise-affected circuit (Reasons, [3.1.1-2] of T 1227/05, emphasis added).

 The Board further notes that these conditions are necessary but does not sufficient.

In the case at issue, the conditions were not found to be met

"since, in connection with the call handling simulation referred to in claim 1, the telephone call center and, in particular, its performance, are not further specified in the claim and, further, the claimed method does not define the further steps which actually result in the stated purpose, i.e. the call handling simulation." ([1.13] last par.)

 In other words - even if a call-center network is a technical system the simulation of which could be considered a technical task, the claim should cleraly define its technical features determining its performance and give details on how this is simulated.

At first sight, this appears to be somewhat narrower than the broader (and often-cited) statement in T1227/05:

"To that extent, specific technical applications of computer-implemented simulation methods are themselves to be regarded as modern technical methods which form an essential part of the fabrication process and precede actual production, mostly as an intermediate step. In view of this development it must be assumed that the outlay for implementing a technical product will increasingly shift to the numerical simulation phase, while final implementation of the simulation result in the actual manufacture of the product will entail no or only comparatively little extra innovation effort. In that light, such simulation methods cannot be denied a technical effect merely on the ground that they do not yet incorporate the physical end product (in effect the German Federal Court of Justice ruled in the same way in its decision of 13 December 1999, X ZB 11/98 - Logikverifikation; Reasons II.4(h))."

 However, the board appears to put emphasis on the words "specific" and "technical" in the first line of the above quote.

 

The Applicant is Kindly Requested to Dig His Own Grave

The "Guidelines for Examination at the European Patent Office" are just what the name says. They should guide the EPO Officers through the Examination procedure and are not addressed to the applicant.

Art. 56 EPC comprises a legal presumption of inventiveness in its formulation:

"An invention shall be considered as involving an inventive step if, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art."

Inventiveness is something which has to be disproven and can not be positively proven. Else, the Article would read "An invention shall not be considered as involving an inventive step unless, having regard to the state of the art, it is not obvious to a person skilled in the art. Trying to find a consistent chain of obvious steps to be taken by the skilled person disproving inventiveness is the job if the Examiner. In an attemt to avoid hindsight analysis, the EPO prescribes the problem-and-solution approach for this purpose.

These are the rules of the game: the examiner has to try establishing a logical chain of reasoning using the problem-and-solution approach and the appicant's task in the examination of obviousness is to point to the steps which are illogical or non-obvious in this approach.

It appears that some examiners have gotten this completely wrong. Many (according to my subjectiv impression mainly those from The Hague) use the following text block in their examination reports:

The applicant should indicate the difference of the subject -matter of the new claim vis- a- vis the state of the art and the significance thereof, i.e., which is the underlying technical problern that is solved in an inventive way by those features of the independent claim that form a contribution over the prior art (e.g. D1 ). ln the Ietter of reply, the applicant is requested to apply the problem-solution approach for inventive step as outlined in the Guidelines CIV 11.5, i.e. the applicant is requested to
- determine the closest prior art,
- identify the technical features distinguishing the claimed subject-matter from the closest prior art,
- identify the objective technical problern being solved by the claim, and
- provide a convincing argument as to why the solution to the above objective technical problern that is put torward by the claim would not have been obvious to the skilled person.

 When I read this text block, I always feel that the examiner on the other side has not really understood what the Examination procedure is all about. He actually wants the applicant to execute the tasks of the examining division.