9.19. Examples of lack of inventive step

In T 1045/12 the appellant (applicant) argued that the solution to the objective technical problem taught by D3 was one of several, equally likely options and that the board had to provide a reason why the skilled person would have selected the claimed option. The board disagreed. The fact that there were other options had no bearing on the obviousness of one specific option. Furthermore, if all options were equally likely, then the invention merely resulted in an obvious and consequently non-inventive selection among a number of known possibilities.