SONN Patentanwälte – IP Attorneys

Violation of morality during the development of the invention

Even if the patentee’s conduct during the development of the invention were regarded as contrary to morality and public order (in the case at hand: research on traditional antimalarial remedies among the Indigenous population of French Guiana, alleged by the opponents to be unfair), this does not...

Workability with open-ended parameter ranges in a claim

Where the claimed invention contains a physical parameter having an open-ended range in one direction that cannot be reproduced on the basis of common general knowledge together with the rest of the invention, the range can still be regarded as reproducible over the whole claim breadth if the description...

The patentability of computer simulations before the European Patent Office

The computer simulation of physical processes has found its way into wide areas of the economy. The decision G 1/19 now clarified the question under which conditions such a simulation can be patented. An article...

Patent claims are allowed to be speculative to a certain extent

Claims in patent applications typically involve generalisations which inherently include an aspect of speculation. Patent applications in the field of medicine represent in this respect no exception. The approaches developed in the jurisprudence of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO for the assessment...

Computer-implemented simulations are patentable under certain conditions

In the context of assessing inventive step, a computer-implemented simulation of a technical system or process that is claimed as such can solve a technical problem by producing a technical effect going beyond the simulation’s implementation on a computer. For that assessment it is not a sufficient...

Animal suffering not balanced by the benefit to mankind

It must be examined in each case whether the benefit of an invention to mankind is so great that it weighs up animal suffering caused in the production of the subject matter of the invention. The commercial exploitation of the invention of a pharmaceutical preparation is contrary to public policy...

EPO case law: Weather simulations as such are not technical

The "weather" is not a technical system that the skilled person can improve, or even simulate with the purpose of trying to improve it. It is a physical system that can be modelled in the sense of showing how it works. This kind of modelling is rather a discovery or a scientific theory, which...

EPO case law: patentability of implants

A device defined by a feature which can only be generated by a surgical or therapeutic step (here: an implantable device for desynchronizing the activity of pathologically active brain areas comprising means for stimulating brain regions) is excluded from patenting under Article 53 (c) EPC. In...

Trade Sectrets and Patent Protection

What is the relationship between trade secrets and patents? Are they mutually exclusive or do they complement each other? Do innovative companies have to decide between trade secrets and patents or is there a possibility to make use of both protection variants? Rainer Beetz deals with these questions...

EPO case law: Patentability of plants: Implementing Regulations are not EPC-compliant

In decisions G 2/12 and G 2/13, the EBA of the EPO concluded that the scope of application of the term "essentially biological processes for the breeding of plants" in Art 53 lit b EPC is interpreted to the effect that product inventions where the claimed subject-matter is directed to plants or...