Friday, March 31, 2017 T 545/08 - A lecture: internet disclosures and balance of probabilties

Subject of this appeal is the date of public availability of an internet disclosure and whether the Examining Division should have allowed evidence with respect to the publication date of this disclosure into the proceedings. Although the Board describes somewhere in its decision that the Boards of Appeal of have a huge backlog, this Board spent quite some time on writing a nice "lesson" on determining the date of availability to the public of internet disclosures and how the balance of probabilities must be applied in those cases. Of course, the Board has to provide a well-reasoned decision - somehow I have the feeling that the lesson is also written for the Examining Division because it seems that the Board was not completely happy with their work.

Friday, March 04, 2016 T 2451/13 - Up to the hilt

Up to the hilt: the sword being plunged into an opponent with only the hilt remaining visible...

This decision summarizes the principles governing burden of proof in case of public prior use, and in particular, what is to be exactly understood as representing 'up-to-the-hilt'. When applied to the present case, the Board concludes that this standard is met...

Catchwords:

If the publication date of a document originating from an opponent (or a subsidiary thereof) is in dispute, the opponent must prove that date "up to the hilt". The yardstick for this proof is that of "beyond reasonable doubt" rather than "absolute certainty" (point 3.2).