SONN Patentanwälte – IP Attorneys

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We relaunch our website - and reduce our firm's name to the essentialsOur new website is online! We engaged Studio Riebenbauer for a redesign. With this relaunch we want to reflect on the trust our clients place in us and the long tradition our firm has enjoyed. The new website features a clean design...

Common general knowledge may be introduced ex officio

Not only in ex parte–, but also in inter partes appeal proceedings, a board is allowed to introduce new ex officio common general knowledge without evidence of such knowledge which prejudices maintenance of the patent, to the extent that the board is knowledgeable in the respective technical field from...

The principle of legitimate expectation also applies to extensions of time due to COVID-19

If the European Patent Office issues a promise or statement on how to act in a given area (in this case: general extensions of time limits due to the COVID 19 pandemic), the principle of legitimate expectations requires that promise or statement to be honoured unless there is good reason not to do so....

No legal primacy of the clean version of documents

There is no provision in the EPC establishing any legal primacy of the clean version of a document over the annotated version. In the event of discrepancies between the two versions, it is therefore not a priori clear which version is to be binding (EPO BoA 11 November 2020, T 353/18).

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...

Cogent reasons for late-filed auxiliary requests in appeal proceedings

If all objections dealt with in a communication of the Board of Appeal were already subject of the previous proceedings, this communication cannot justify the existence of exceptional circumstances within the meaning of Art 13 (2) RPBA 2020, which would allow a delayed filing of auxiliary requests....

Other people's trade marks – under what circumstances may I use them without asking for permission?

Questions relating to the use of third parties' trade marks in the context of one's own advertising material are not as uncommon as they may seem at first glance: May I display the logo of the manufacturer of the equipment whose servicing I offer without their consent? Am I allowed to advertise with...

The Board of Appeal is competent to review questions of fact

The Board of Appeal is empowered to review appealed decisions in their entirety, including questions of law and fact. This even applies to findings of fact of the first instance, even if these are at least partly based on witness evidence (EPO Board of Appeal 7/12/2020, T 1604/16).

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 or...