Tuesday, April 24, 2018 T 0261/15 - Examples rather than end points

In this opposition appeal, the Board found that claim 1 of the Main Request, relating to a high strength pearlitic steel rail defined by several ranges of alloying elements, although overlapping with the composition of a pearlitic rail disclosed in D1, is novel. More specifically, the Board found that - whilst it is true that the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office, G.VI.8, recite that the claimed sub-range is sufficiently far removed from any specific examples disclosed in the prior art and from the end-points of the known range as a condition for acknowledging novelty of a numerical selection - the limit values (end points) of a known range, although explicitly disclosed, are not to be treated in the same way as the examples. The person skilled in the art would therefore not necessarily contemplate working in the region of the end-points of the prior art range, which are normally not representative of the gist of the prior art teaching.

Friday, December 16, 2016 T 66/12 - Simulation results and a sub-range

For people working in chemistry this may be just one of the so-many boards of appeal decisions on (sub) ranges. In the field of electro-mechanics I do not often see a decions about it.
In this opposition appeal the independent claim of the main request relates to a vehicle with a fuel cell. The independent claim comprises a sub range and the sub range seems to be the only difference with respect to the prior art. In the communication of the Board accompanying the summons to oral proceedings the Board concluded that the sub range is most probably an arbitrary specimen of the prior art and is, according to established case law, not novel. The final decision shows that the patent owner tried to prove that there is an effect in the claimed sub range. We can also read that the provided "simulations results" relate to current vehicles that may comprise technology that was not available at the date of filing of the current patent. Thus, there were no useful test results available at the date of filing to prove an effect of the sub range. This decision of the board shows what the consequence can be.