the (technically) skilled person might be considered a multilingual person but not normally a linguist (Reasons 3.13.7).

In the application of the problem-solution approach for the assessment of inventive step, the person skilled in the art within the meaning of Article 56 EPC enters the stage only when the objective technical problem has been formulated in view of the selected "closest prior art". Only then can the notional skilled person's relevant technical field and its extent be appropriately defined. Therefore, it cannot be the "skilled person " who selects the closest prior art in the first step of the problem-solution approach. Rather, this selection is to be made by the relevant deciding body, on the basis of the established criteria, in order to avoid any hindsight analysis (see point 2.1.4 of the Reasons).

As to the definition of the skilled person for the assessment of inventive step and the interpretation of technical specifications (such as telecommunications standards): see points 2.2 and 2.7 of the Reasons.

In T 1601/15 the board held that the skilled person did not need prompting to apply their knowledge. It was not convinced by the argument that the skilled person would have had no reason to draw upon it. The skilled person did not need a reason to apply their knowledge. This knowledge formed, as it were, the technical background for any activities they performed and fed into all their decisions. In this regard, a distinction had to be made between the common general knowledge in the art and the teaching of specialist documents. In the case at issue, the solution to the problem would have been obvious to the skilled person in light of their knowledge, as evidenced in particular by document D15.