Practice,the,European,Patent,O law Practice at the European Patent Office
Bankruptcy is a situation, wherein an individual is termed as unable to discharge all the debts. When a person or a company is not able to pay off its creditors, it has an obligation to file a bankruptcy suit. In fact, a bankruptcy suit is a When you work with an attorney, you will have no problem reducing the risks associated with getting your case in front of a judge and jury, or other formal court, when you need to. However, every case is different. It is important to work wi
Normal 0 false false false MicrosoftInternetExplorer4 /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable{mso-style-name:"Table Normal";mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;mso-style-noshow:yes;mso-style-parent:"";mso-padding-alt:0in 5.4pt 0in 5.4pt;mso-para-margin:0in;mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;mso-pagination:widow-orphan;font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Times New Roman";mso-ansi-language:#0400;mso-fareast-language:#0400;mso-bidi-language:#0400;}Under Article 52(1) EPC, "European patents shall be issued for anyinventions which are liable of industrial application, which are new and whichinvolve an inventive step." So, four questions need to be reviewed:1. Is there an invention?2. Is the invention susceptible of industrial application?3. Is the invention novel?4. Does the invention involve an inventive step?The first question "Is there an invention?" is just like:"Is the claimed subject-matter as a whole excluded from the area ofpatentable subject-matter?" The invention question or patentablesubject-matter question necessarily follow the three further questions, whichcannot be assessed when there is no invention.The question "Is there an invention?" according to the case lawof the Boards of Appeal of the EPO also implicitly implies the furtherquestion: "Does the claimed subject-matter have a technicalcharacter?" "Having technical character is an implicit requirement ofthe EPC to be met by an invention in order to be an invention within themeaning of Article 52(1) EPC".Patentable subject-matter factors also interfere again at a secondarylevel, during the inventive step assessment. T 641/00 (Comvik/Two Identities)states that, "An invention consisting of a mixture of technical andnon-technical features and having technical character as a whole is to beassessed with respect to the requirement of inventive step by taking account ofall those features which contribute to said technical character whereasfeatures making no such contribution cannot support the presence of inventivestep." Practice in the United KingdomFollowing the 2006 Court of Appeal judgment in Aerotel v Telco andMacrossan's application, which includes a lengthy discussion of case law in thearea, the UKPO has approved the following test:(1) Properly construe the claim(2) Identify the actual contribution(3) Ask whether it falls solely within the excluded subject matter(4) Check whether the actual or alleged contribution is actually technicalin nature.The Court decided that the new method provided a structured and morehelpful way of applying the statutory test for evaluating patentability whichwas consistent with previous decisions of the Court.United StatesSection 101 of Title 35 U.S.C. sets out the subject matter that can bepatented:Whoever invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine,manufacture, or structure of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof,may acquire a patent therefore, subject to the conditions and requirements ofthis title.As of October 2005, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO)has issued provisional guidelines for patent examiners to determine if a givenclaimed invention meets the legal requirements of being a useful process,manufacture, structure of matter or machine (35 USC 101). The USPTO has reemphasized its position that literary works, compositionsof music, compilations of data, legal documents (such as insurance policies),and forms of energy (such as data packets transmitted over the Internet), arenot believed to be "manufactures" and hence, by themselves, are notpatentable. Article Tags: Inventive Step, Patentable Subject-matter, Technical Character
Practice,the,European,Patent,O