T 1574/23 04-04-2025
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FLOATING PLATFORM FOR SUPPORTING GENERATORS OF WIND POWER AND/OR WAVE POWER AND/OR MARINE CURRENT POWER
SOCIEDAD DE CALDERERIA COALCA, S.A.
Martínez de Azcoitia Fernández, Manuel
I. The applicant's appeal is directed against the decision of the Examining Division to refuse the present European patent application.
The Examining Division decided, inter alia, that the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request lacked an inventive step.
II. The following documents were cited by the Examining Division:
D1: US 4 982 681 A;
D2: CN 109 278 950 A;
D3: ES 2 650 275 B1;
D4: EP 3 196 114 A1;
D5: CN 1 857 961 A;
D6: CN 201 347 195 Y;
D7: US 2012/0291685 Al;
D8: US 2012/0132122 Al; and
D9: FR 2 970 696 A1.
III. In the statement of grounds of appeal, the appellant requested that the decision of the Examining Division be set aside and that a patent be granted in accordance with the main request, or, in the alternative, in accordance with one of the auxiliary requests A or B, all requests filed with the statement of grounds of appeal.
IV. In a communication under Article 15(1) RPBA 2020 dated 12 February 2025, the Board set out its provisional view of the case. In particular, the Board indicated that it intended not to admit the newly filed main request into the proceedings and that the set of claims of auxiliary request A appeared to meet the requirements of the EPC. The Board also informed the appellant that it intended to remit the case to the Examining Division with the order to grant a European patent on the basis of the claims of the auxiliary request A together with the figures of the application as originally filed and a description to be adapted.
V. By letter dated 13 March 2025, the appellant withdrew the main request, made the auxiliary requests A the new main request and asked the Board to proceed as indicated in its communication. They also filed a clean version of the claims of the auxiliary request A.
VI. Oral proceedings set for 21 May 2025 were cancelled.
VII. Claim 1 of the main request reads as follows:
A floating platform for supporting generators of power derived from the wind and/or the waves and/or ocean currents, comprising an approximately disc-shaped general configuration in which a completely watertight radial structure is defined with a circular or polygonal perimeter, wherein the disc has a height or depth (13) and a diameter (14), characterised in that the floating platform presents:
(1.a) a ratio between the platform height or depth (13) and diameter thereof between 0.06 and 0.35; (1.b) a natural period greater than 15 seconds, as this is in the region of 50% more than the smallest period of the swell, and (1.c) a sloping keel (16) acting as a skirt arranged to improve the floating platform behaviour against the swell.
1. The set of claims of the main request corresponds to that of the main request underlying the contested decision.
2. The Examining Division held that the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request lacked an inventive step in view of the combination of any of D3, D5 or D6 with the common general knowledge of the skilled person as evidenced by D5, D6, D7, D8 or D9.
However, the lack of inventive step when starting from D5 or D6 is not substantiated in the decision. Only the objection based on D3 as closest prior art is substantiated concerning the subject-matter of claim 1 (see point 1 of the decision).
2.1 The appellant agrees with the Examining division that the subject-matter of claim 1 differs from the platform of D3 on account of the features of the characterising portion of claim 1, as mentioned on page 4 of the appealed decision.
The Board agrees with that assessment. In particular, a ratio of the height to the diameter of the platform of between 0.06 and 0.35 is not disclosed in D3.
2.2 The Examining Division considered - without reference to any other document - that this feature appeared to be an obvious optimisation of the floating platform's hydrodynamic performance for a specific wind turbine and site conditions, lacking any surprising technical effect. These parameters did not demonstrate an inventive step, as the state of the art and general knowledge in offshore platform design did not deter a person skilled in the art from the proposed solution. Instead, the claimed ranges could be derived by routine trial and error or standard iterative design methods, including theoretical modelling and prototype testing under conditions tailored to the specific turbine and site. Reference was made to the Guidelines for Examination in the European Patent Office, G-VII, Annex 3.1 (ii).
2.3 The appellant's contrary view is however correct in this respect. The platform of D3 is clearly limited to a height/diameter ratio of less than 0.05 (see claim 1). Accordingly, D3 teaches away from the claimed ratio. The cited reference to Annex 3.1 (ii) of the Guidelines for Examination in the decision is not correctly interpreted by the Examining Division. The issue at hand is not a selection in the sense of a choice from a limited range of possibilities in the prior art, since D3 does not disclose a range of ratios within the claimed ones (0.06 to 0.35), but of less than 0.05 (see claim 1 and page 11 of D3). It is not apparent why the skilled person, starting from the platform of D3, would seek to optimise such a ratio outside the specific teaching of staying below 0.05. The reasoning is tainted by hindsight.
Consequently, the decision is incorrect in this respect and the subject-matter of claim 1 is not rendered obvious by the combination of D3 with common general knowledge.
2.4 Furthermore, since none of the cited documents teaches or points to such a ratio for a disc-shaped platform with a completely watertight radial structure, the subject-matter of claim 1 cannot be rendered obvious by them (Article 56 EPC).
3. The subject-matter of claim 1 is based on claim 1 of the application as originally filed (see A1 publication of the application) together with paragraphs [0052] and [0055], figure 4 (water tightness), paragraph [0021] (natural period), and paragraph [0047] with claim 4 (sloping keel) of the application as originally filed.
Claims 2 to 6 correspond to claims 2 to 3 and 5 to 7 as originally filed, respectively.
Accordingly, the subject-matter of the claims does not extend beyond the content of the application as originally filed and meets the requirements of Article 123(2) EPC.
4. It follows from the above that the appeal is allowable and that the claims of the main request comply with the requirements of the EPC.
Since the description needs to be adapted to the set of claims and both the appellant and the Board consider that this can be dealt with more expediently by the Examining Division, the case is remitted to the Examining Division with the following order.
For these reasons it is decided that:
1. The decision under appeal is set aside.
2. The case is remitted to the Examining Division with the order to grant a patent on the basis of the claims of auxiliary request A as refiled by letter of 13 March 2025, together with the figures of the application as originally filed and a description to be adapted.