Wednesday, July 01, 2020 T 1294/15 - A business method claim without claiming the business is still a business method

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet

In affiliate reward programs, rewards might need to be divided among different participants; in the claim between a content manager and an introduction page manager. Instead of dividing up each reward among the parties, the application proposes to sometimes award the full amount to one single party and sometimes to another single party. Overtime this balances out so that the rewards are are about equal to exact division. The new scheme is more efficient since it needs fewer divisions. 

The board doesn't like the claim, as it represents a business method. However the applicant makes an interesting argument. By stripping all the business aspects of the claim, one is left with merely an improved division algorithm. If the stripped claim is technical and inventive then surely further restricting it can't remove patentability? Unfortunately for the applicant this argument is not accepted. 

Tuesday, January 07, 2020 T 405/14 - Closest prior art does not need to be the closest

Which springboard(s) can be used?

In the present opposition appeal case, inventive step was challenged. A key element in the debate was whether the presence of a document D1 which would be closer to the claimed invention than a document D2 would require any inventive step objection to start from D1 as the closest prior art, or whether an attack starting from D2 as the closest prior art would also be admissible and allowable - as well as whether doing so would not only not be correct, but would -if applied by the Examining Division- account to  a substantial procedural violation. "Concerning inventive step, the appellant (applicant) argued that the skilled person would not consider D2 as closest prior art, since it did not disclose magneto-resistive speed-sensors or sensing elements relying on the Hall effect. This appeared all the more true under the present circumstances, considering that document D1 was available. D1 appeared to be a much more suitable starting point, since it addressed problems regarding the testing of speed sensors based on Hall effect or magneto resistive sensors, which was exactly the problem addressed by the claimed invention." The Board came to conclude, with reference to an earlier decision from this same Board, that "Experience teaches that a document which shares a common purpose with a claimed invention, as well as a large number of features, in order to solve the same or a similar problem, will not necessarily allow a convincing objection of obviousness to be raised against that invention, whereas said invention may indeed result, without hindsight, in an obvious manner from an apparently less promising item of prior art. In this respect, all items of prior art considered as starting points which allow the elaboration of a realistic attack under Article 56 EPC may be considered to qualify as "closest prior art", although this currently accepted terminology is somewhat misleading." One could understand this as that this Board seems to consider the term "closest" meaningless. The Board does, unfortunately, not discuss other case law that does give (or at least seems to give) a meaning to the term "closest", e.g., by using terminology such as "most promising" springboard (see e.g. Case Law Book (2019) I.D.3.1 "Determination of closest prior art in general",  3.2 "Same purpose or effect" and 3.4 "Most promising starting point"), nor does the Board comment on its deviations from the quite clear guidance in Guidelines G-VII, 5.1 (despite Article 20(2) RPBA 2007).

Tuesday, September 03, 2019 T 1503/12 - On technical and non-technical features, technical considerations, business methods and THE problem-solution approach

In this appeal against the examining division's decision to refuse a European patent application for lack of inventive step (Article 56 EPC), the appellant submitted that "there was a divergence in how computer-implemented inventions were examined at the EPO. If the application happened to be classified as a business method, the EPO would use the Comvik approach and dismiss features of the invention as non-technical. If, on the other hand, the application was classified in the field of telecommunications, it would be assessed using the "normal" problem-solution approach, and, irrespective of the underlying aim, features relating to data transmission would be treated as a technical telecommunications protocol. Applicants wanted consistency and certainty, especially in the field of computer-implemented inventions, which had become increasingly important." Applicants submitted that "The correct approach, in all fields, was the problem-solution approach." The appellants tried to argue that the claimed invention had a number of technical effects, which provided a basis for inventive step. The Board agreed that the correct approach, in all fields, was the problem-solution approach, but the Board did not agree that there is such divergence: "Comvik is rather a special application of the problem-solution approach to inventions that contain a mix of technical and non-technical features". The Board then applied the problem-solution approach, using Comvik, and concluded that the claimed invention was not inventive. 

Tuesday, June 11, 2019 T 473/15 - Closest prior art not directed to the same purpose or effect as the invention

In the present case, novelty and prior art were challenged in opposition appeal. The main request was considered novel, in view of it being considered a multiple selection from alternatives and parameter ranges disclosed in different parts of the description of a prior art document D5 and there being no pointer towards applying them in combination. The opponent considered the same document as the closest prior art, and the board saw no reason to depart from this choice. However, the claim aimed for an improved filtereing whereas D5 related to a different purpose or effect: chromatography. "In other words, D5 relates to a different technical field than that of the patent in suit. However, a closest prior art that is not directed to the same purpose or effect as the invention cannot, according to established case law, lead the skilled person in an obvious way to the claimed invention (see the introductory remarks to Case Law of the Boards of Appeal, 8th ed., I.D.3.2).  Applied to the present case, this means that the skilled person would not, without hindsight, try to improve the particulate capture efficiency of the medium of D5, which is meant for chromatographic separation. Hence, the skilled person would not, when starting from D5, apply D4's, D10's or any other document's teaching, since these documents do not deal with chromatographic separation."

Wednesday, March 06, 2019 T 489/14 - New referral on computer-implemented simulations

In the present case, the Board was faced with discussing inventive step of a computer-implemented simulation of pedestrian crowd movement in an environment. The Board tended to consider the invention to lack inventive step over a known general-purpose computer. However, the appellant argued that modelling pedestrian crowd movement in an environment constituted an adequately defined technical purpose for a computer-implemented method. The Board discussed case law relating to  the requirement of a direct link with physical reality, to simulations and to designs, and then decided to refer three questions to the Enlarged Board:

1. In the assessment of inventive step, can the computer-implemented simulation of a technical system or process solve a technical problem by producing a technical effect which goes beyond the simulation's implementation on a computer, if the computer-implemented simulation is claimed as such?

2. If the answer to the first question is yes, what are the relevant criteria for assessing whether a computer-implemented simulation claimed as such solves a technical problem? In particular, is it a sufficient condition that the simulation is based, at least in part, on technical principles underlying the simulated system or process?

3. What are the answers to the first and second questions if the computer-implemented simulation is claimed as part of a design process, in particular for verifying a design?

Tuesday, February 19, 2019 T 1358/09 - Technical considerations in text classification (AI, ML)

This blog post is a first one of a series of blog posts in which we discuss past and recent decisions which are relevant to the field of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). We start with discussing older decisions which form the basis for the EPO's current approach to assessing the patentability of artificial intelligence and machine learning-based inventions.

While the revised GL G-II, 3.3.1 generally refers for guidance for the patentability of AI/ML-based inventions to mathematical models, a few areas are explicitly identified in which AI/ML is considered to make a technical contribution, such as using a neural network to identify irregular heartbeats, and classification of digital images, videos, audio or speech signals based on low-level features.

The following decision, however, is cited as an example of where machine learning does not serve a technical purpose, namely in the classification of text documents in respect of their textual content.

In particular, the Board considers the following not to make a technical contribution per se:

• Determining whether text documents belong to the same class of documents in respect of their textual content, as the Board considers this a cognitive rather than technical consideration.
• Providing an improved textual classification over manual classification by using precise computation steps which no human being would ever perform when classifying documents; the Board considers a comparison with what a human being would do not to be a suitable basis for distinguishing between technical and non-technical steps.
• Providing a faster classification than prior art classification methods; the Board considers the algorithm not to go beyond a particular mathematical formulation of the task of classifying documents, and in particular, the design of the algorithm not to be motivated by technical considerations of the internal functioning of the computer to make it 'faster'.
• Providing a reliable and objective result, as the Board considers this an inherent property of deterministic algorithms and not to make a technical contribution on its own.

Friday, November 23, 2018 T 1045/12 - If the grass is greener on the other side, one path that leads you there is sufficient

The present appeal is against a refusal decision by the Examining Division on the grounds of lack of inventive step. In its provisional opinion, the Board also expressed doubts as to whether the application complied with Article 56 EPC. During oral proceedings, the appellant's position was that the Board had not provided conclusive reasons on the basis of tangible evidence showing why the skilled person starting from the closest prior art (D4) would, and not just could, have arrived at the claimed invention. The appellant further argued that the solution to the objective technical problem taught by D3 (evidence of common general knowledge) was one of several, equally likely options, and that in the presence of several, equally likely options, the Board had to provide a reason why the skilled person would have selected the claimed option.

The Board cited decision T 1014/07, which held that [a finding of lack of inventive step must] "identify conclusive reasons on the basis of tangible evidence that would have prompted the skilled person to act in one way or another", and concluded that its present decision, being based on prior art documents D4 and D3, is indeed based on "tangible evidence".

The Board further concluded that one of the options taught by D3 solved the underlying technical problem, and that the existence of other options has no bearing on the obviousness of one specific option. Furthermore, if all options are equally likely, then the invention is merely the result of an obvious and consequently non-inventive selection from a number of known possibilities. The finding of lack of inventiveness was therefore upheld and the appeal dismissed. 

Tuesday, October 09, 2018 T 0144/11 - Technical implementation of business requirements - rarely patentable

This case concerns a system for rating the value of financial securities, to help investors decide in advance whether or not the investment is a safe one. The patent application was refused by the Examining Division under Art. 56 EPC for failing to solve a problem in a technical field. The applicant appealed the decision, arguing that the invention enabled a safe and reliable security rating system for objectively calculating a rating value, which took into account the popularity of a security by counting the transmissions of rating values to investors. The counting of transmissions was inherently technical and was an idea which the technical skilled person would come up with when asked by the business person to propose a good rating of securities.

The appellant formulated the problem to be solved as "determining reliable ratings for securities". The Board found this formulation too broad, because it omits the details of the "objective calculation" of rating values. According to T 641/00 (COMVIK), non-technical aspects may legitimately appear as part of the framework of the technical problem to be solved , in particular as a constraint that has to be met. Reference was also made to T 1663/11, in which this framework was considered in the form of business requirements that a "notional business person" could give to the technical skilled person to implement, whereby the business requirements should not contain any technical aspects. In that case, the implementation was found to contain technical considerations that could not be derived from the business requirements and was deemed patentable.

The Board in this case observed that: "another constraint is that the technical skilled person must receive a complete description of the business requirement, or else he would not be able to implement it and he should not be providing any input in the non-technical domain." Further, while the Board did not deny that counting transmissions has a technical character, it found that the details of the "objective calculation" (i.e. counting) are part of the overall business concept addressed by the invention and must be given to the technical skilled person as part of the requirements specification.

The appeal was dismissed on the basis that the problem to be solved was the technical implementation of a business requirement, thus lacking inventiveness.

Thursday, April 12, 2018 T 2101/12 - Non-technical disclosures are prior art

In the appealed decision, D2 (a US patent application) was cited in a reasoning against novelty. One could therefore be led to believe that this document constitutes at least the most suitable starting point for the assessment of inventive step. The board is however of the opinion that such is not the case (r.6.1). The board also does not consider the document mentioned by the appellant, i.e. D3, or other documents cited in the search report, to be more suitable starting points. Instead, the board considers that the most suitable starting point is common general knowledge. The board considers it common general knowledge that documents, such as a will or a contract between parties, may be signed at a notary's office. In the present case, the board holds that the skilled person starts from this prior art method with zero technical features, the problem which consists in the automation of that method being solved entirely with technical means (r.7.15).
The appellant submitted that something can only be state of the art if it is related to a technological field or a field from which, because of its informational character, a skilled person would expect to derive technically relevant information, referring to T 172/03. The board agrees with the appellant that this opinion is not in line with Catchword 2 of T 172/03 (as also relied upon in the Guidelines for Examination G-VII, 2), unless one interprets the expression "technically relevant" in that Catchword in a trivial manner. The board however considers that the interpretation of Article 54(2) EPC given in T 172/03 is incorrect. 
The applicant also requested to refer to the Enlarged Board: In the assessment of the inventive step of subject matter presenting both technical and non-technical aspects, a problem-solution analysis using a publicly known entirely non-technical practice as "closest prior art", notwithstanding the existence of technical teachings in the same field? The Board did not consider this necessary (r.8)

Tuesday, March 27, 2018 T1833/14 - A tough composition

This case concerns an appeal by an opponent against a decision of the opposition division rejecting an opposition filed by the opponent/appellant.

The patent in suit relates to a tougher polymer composition used for making moulded articles with injection moulding. The appellant lodged the appeal on the grounds of an alleged public prior use anticipating granted claim 1 and inventive step.

The appellant argued that a skilled person could have easily reproduced the claimed composition starting from a product which was publicly sold before the filing date of the patent in suit.

However, the BoA stated that mere public disposal of a product does not give the skilled person sufficient information on how to make that product. In summary, the criteria of sufficiency of disclosure for a polymer (or composition) which demand also the disclosure of the method of preparation of such polymer (or composition) in the patent application, must also apply to the reproducibility without undue burden of a product in the market. The appellant did not show that any information in that respect was available before the filing date, thus the BoA could not consider a sample of the publicly available product as being part of the state of the art according to Art. 54(2).

It is also interesting to note that the BoA contested an inventive step reasoning of the respondent (patent proprietor): the comparative examples disclosed in the application as filed did not relate to compositions differing from the claimed composition only in the distinguishing features of the granted claim with the closest prior art(s), thus the effect of the distinguishing feature over the closest prior art(s) could not have been demonstrated based on those examples, and the technical problem originally formulated by the respondent needed reformulation.

Tuesday, October 10, 2017 T 1204/12 - Stern but fair?

The city 'Brusque' in Brazil

In this examination appeal, the invention relates to the entering and setting of an 'availability status' in a 'Push-to-talk' application in a mobile communication device, with the independent method claims defining the associated data processing. Unfortunately for the applicant-now-appellant, the Board of Appeal quickly 'strips away' the semantic meaning of the data (e.g. 'alert status') and the data processing entities ('server', 'communication device'), to conclude that the invention merely pertains to 'storing/transmitting the data on/to different computers'. Any remaining feature+effect combinations are swept off the table as 'obvious'.

The claim of the main request:

1. A method of establishing a user communications availability in an application (206) operative on a mobile communications device (200), the method comprising:

determining an alert status associated with the mobile communications device (200);

responsive to the determination of the alert status being in a first state, presenting to a user a first plurality of options, each of the first plurality of options corresponding to establishing the user communication availability in the application with a status applicable to said application (206);

responsive to the determination of the alert being in a second state, presenting to the user a second plurality of options having at least one option different from the first plurality of options, each of the second plurality of options corresponding to a user communication availability with a different status applicable to said application (206);

receiving a selection from the user of an option from said first or second plurality of options;

responsive to said selection of the option from said first or second plurality of options, auto­matically establishing and setting, at the mobile communications device, the status of the user communication availability in said application (206) in accordance with the status corresponding to the selected option; and

sending the status of the user communication availability in said application to a server (114), wherein the sending causes the server (114) to transmit an availability status representative of the status of the user communication availability in said application to at least one other mobile communications device associated with said application.

Tuesday, September 12, 2017 T 1329/04 - Post-published evidence cannot be sole basis of inventive step

In the decision T 488/16, recently discussed in this blog, it became again clear that the EPO is strict in allowing post-published evidence to prove inventive step. The core decision where this follows from is this decision, T 1329/04. 

The cathwords of this decision: The definition of an invention as being a contribution to the art, i.e. as solving a technical problem and not merely putting forward one, requires that it is at least made plausible by the disclosure in the application that its teaching solves indeed the problem it purports to solve. Therefore, even if supplementary post-published evidence may in the proper circumstances also be taken into consideration, it may not serve as the sole basis to establish that the application solves indeed the problem it purports to solve.

Thus, post-published evidence of a technical effect/advantage is allowed as long as there was enough information in the application as filed to make this 'new' information already plausible. 

Tuesday, July 04, 2017 T 578/12 - Dispensing restricted products

 

Many features of the claimed invention were disclosed in an earlier patent application. However, the earlier patent application had no drawings, nor any description of a detailed embodiment of a dispensing machine. To what extent is the earlier application an enabling disclosure?

Tuesday, June 20, 2017 T 2456/12 & T 0059/13 - Interpretation by the skilled persion

In two recent decisions in opposition appeal, the Board addressed how the skilled person interprets the claims. In interpreting the claims for assessing novelty and inventive step, the Board refers to established case law and emphasizes that "the patent must be construed by a mind willing to understand, not a mind desirous of misunderstanding" and that "the skilled person should try with synthetical propensity, to arrive at an interpretation which is technically sensible and takes into account the whole of the disclosure of a patent". 

Monday, June 19, 2017 T 519/12 Technical standard similar to common general knowledge?

Using common general knowledge as a secondary document in the problem-solution approach usually requires a bit less argumentation compared to using a normal publication, e.g. it needs hardly to be argued why such content would be consulted. In this decision, the Board seems to take a similar approach for a technical standard (in this case on credit cards). 

Catchwords: It is expected from the skilled person that he would exercise his skills in the framework of technical Standards in force in his field of activity. No inventive activity can thus be derived from a feature that simply reflects the content of such a technical prescription (cf. point 3.5).

Friday, June 09, 2017 T 688/13 - Bonus effect or main effect to be achieved?

One way street to obviousness?

This opposition appeal concerns an invention which provides an emulsion for coloring foodstuff, which is said to be more transparent and provide a more vibrant coloring ("stärkere Leuchtkraft").

This advantageous effect appears to be achieved by a reduced droplet size, which is also the sole distinguishing feature over D7 as closest prior art.

The opponent as appellant argues that the objective technical problem is to be formulated as how to obtain an emulsion which is more transparent and provides a more vibrant coloring.

According to the appellant, it is known from D5 and common general knowledge that a reduced droplet size improves the transparency of an emulsion, and that the more vibrant coloring would be obtained inherently, and thereby as a bonus-effect, when the skilled person reduces the droplet size of D7 to obtain the desired improvement in transparency.

The patent proprietor of course disagrees, and argues that the actual objective technical problem solved by the invention is how to obtain this more vibrant coloring and not the improved transparency. However, as a seemingly precautionary measure, the patent proprietor decides to 'eliminate' the technical effect of improved transparency by submitting an auxiliary request in which the emulsion is limited to application in Yogurt (which is non-transparent).

Does the latter strategy work? Yes. Although the Board concurs with the appellant with respect to the main request, the Board agrees that the 'transparency' effect is not achieved anymore by the auxiliary request. Accordingly, the improved vibrancy is now the sole technical effect of the distinguishing feature, by which the distinguishing feature is not rendered obvious anymore by the cited prior art.

Monday, May 15, 2017 T 1965/11 Materialised Views

The claimed invention makes use of available materialised views in order to improve database query performance. Due to the age of the application (filed in 2001), the Board examines inventive step in an appeal concerning added subject matter.

Tuesday, March 14, 2017 T 0625/11 - How technical is determining a threshold value?

In this appeal from the Examining Division the main question is whether the claimed method of determining a threshold value of an operational parameter of a nuclear reactor, based upon a simulation of the functioning of the reactor, is technical. The Examining Division recognised that the use of a computer made the claimed invention technical in the sense of Art. 52 EPC, but denied inventive step. Discussing the case law, including T 0641/00 (Comvik) and T 1227/05 (Infineon), the Board distinguishes two different approaches. The first approach requires including the functioning of the nuclear reactor to state the technical effect in the claim. The second approach, which is in line with T 1227/05, does not require stating the technical problem in the claim. The Board chooses the second approach and concludes that determining the value of a parameter gives the claim a technical character going beyond the simple interaction between the numerical interaction algorithm and the computer.

Sunday, November 20, 2016 T 1802/13 - Medical imaging - is presenting the information technical?

In this decision it needs to be settled if in medical imaging the claimed superposition of a leadwire has a technical effect. The Board goes into the discussion of presentation of information, differentiating between what is presented and how it is presented (cognitive aspect). Regarding the technicality of the manner in which (i.e. "how") information is presented - the main issue to be established is whether the underlying user interface together with the manner in which cognitive content is presented credibly assists the user in performing a technical task by means of a continued and guided human-machine interaction process (basically related to the question "for what purpose" the content is presented). The Board decides that it is not derivable from the claim - beyond mere speculation - that it credibly brings about the technical effect of accurately predicting the electrodes' properties and providing that information to the surgeon in an efficient manner. The case is dismissed as lacking inventive step.

Sunday, October 02, 2016 T 1242/06 - Tomatoes III

After two referrals to the EBoA underlying G 1/08 and G 2/12 settling the Art. 53(b) issues relevant for the present case, the Opposition Appeal proceedings regarding the “Tomato” patent have reached their end: The patent is maintained in amended form with two claims relating to the Tomato fruit itself but no claims to the method of their production. The maintained claims are the claims of Auxiliary request I discussed in the below (highlighted in red and bolded). Depositing of the lines used to obtain the claimed Tomato fruit was not found necessary for enablement. The inventive step of the claimed tomato fruit was found to lie in the low expectation of success of the performed selection.