3.3.2 Making available to a person not skilled in the art

In T 953/90 and T 969/90 the boards pointed out that information has been made public even if the sale was made to a person not skilled in the art.

In T 809/95 the patentee justified its position on non-disclosure essentially on the ground that the test persons were not skilled in the art. It cited T 877/90. The board noted that the latter decision dealt with information made public by oral disclosure at a lecture. Public disclosure was there linked to the condition that the audience had to include skilled persons capable of understanding the lecture. Such considerations seem appropriate to an oral disclosure but are not transferable to the case of information made public by making an article available for free use.