Thursday, October 06, 2016 T 971/11 - Too late for first instance but admissible in appeal

After you missed the first train, can you catch the next?

The opponent filed a document B1 just before the first-instance oral proceedings. The opposition division considered the document late and not prima-facie relevant. The document was not admitted into the proceedings. The document is again submitted with the statement of the grounds. 

On the one hand the appeal board should only verify that the opposition division's decision not to admit the document was not unreasonable. On the other hand, they need to make up their own mind when the document is presented with the appeal? The board discusses this dilemma, and in the end does not hold it against B1 that is was already rejected by the opposition division. B1 is admitted into the appeal procedure. Another new document that was filed just before the oral proceedings in appeal was not admitted.

Tuesday, March 29, 2016 T 1997/11 - Not enabled

The patent application in this Examination appeal is refused under Art. 83 for lack of  enablement. 

The invention concerns an intravascular-ultrasound (IVUS) data-acquisition system in which the transfer function of a catheter is estimated from the ultrasound data itself. I understand this feature supports, what is referred to as, 'blind deconvolution'.

About half a year after the priority date an article D0 is published authored by the inventors which also discloses the invention. Document D0 is more detailed and gives more enablement than the patent application. This difference may have brought an enablement problem to the fore.

The applicant claims that blind deconvolution is part of the common general knowledge of the skilled person, as evidenced by either D3 (cited by the Examiner) or documents D15-D24 (cited by the applicant). Note that document D3 is cited by article D0 as well.