Friday, January 24, 2020 T 1491/14 - A medicament for patients who have ceased use of another medicament due to sleep problems

Sleepless nights

This opposition concerns a medicament whose novel feature is that it is prescribed to particular patients. Claim 1 of the main request reads:

1. A use of 1-[2-(2,4-dimethylphenylsulfanyl)phenyl] piperazine and pharmaceutically acceptable salts thereof in the manufacture of a medicament for the treatment of a disease selected from depression, anxiety, abuse or chronic pain, wherein said medicament is for use in a patient who has previously received another medication for the treatment of said disease which medication was ceased or reduced due to sleep or sexually related adverse events.

The board accepts this as a valid claim. It turned out to be novel but obvious to prescribe the medicament to a patient who has previously received another medication which medication was ceased due to sexually related adverse events, but after limiting the claim to sleep problems it was allowed.  

Sunday, November 08, 2015 T 0895/13 Insufficient disclosure for a medicine

The Board, in an opposition appeal, examines the requirements for disclosure of a medicament. It confirms that the principle defined in T 609/02, for a Swiss type of claim, also apply to a further medical use claim defined under Art.54(5) EPC2000. Applying this principle, the Board concludes that the invention is insufficiently disclosed (Art.83 EPC).
In doing so, the Board also makes clear that the assessment of the technical effect provided by the claimed subject-matter was to be made in the context of the assessment of sufficiency of disclosure and not under inventive step as was done by the Opposition Division.