4. Determining the disclosure of the relevant prior art
T 1362/19 × View decision
Catchword:
If an abstract feature is not defined in more concrete terms either in the relevant claim or in the description of the application, it has to be understood in a broad sense. This may be important when assessing the implicit disclosure of a document of the state of the art. In particular, for this assessment it may be irrelevant whether there are several alternatives for implementing the abstract feature in concrete terms (Reasons 2.3.7).
T 2510/18 × View decision
Abstract
Dans l'affaire T 2510/18 la chambre a considéré comme nouvelles par rapport aux documents D2, D3 et D5 les revendications 1 à 6 du brevet en cause qui a pour objet une molécule, la Simalikalactone E (ci-après la SkE), qui peut être extraite de la plante Quassia amara, ainsi que son utilisation comme médicament dans la prévention et le traitement du paludisme.
D2 est un article qui décrit une étude sur les remèdes antipaludiques utilisés en Guyane française. Il ressort de l'étude que l'espèce la plus utilisée est Quassia amara seule ou en combinaison avec d'autres espèces végétales. D2 décrit que cette plante est utilisée sous forme de décoctions administrée par voie orale ou est appliquée sur le corps du patient.
D3 est un article qui concerne l'évaluation de l'activité antipaludique de 23 espèces différentes de plantes utilisées en Guyane française dont la Quassia amara. D3 décrit que la décoction préparée avec les feuilles fraîches de Quassia amara n'est pas toxique à 1000 mg/jour et peut être administrée sans problème pendant plusieurs jours, quel que soit le principe actif. La décoction de feuilles de Quassia amara est donc présentée comme un remède antipaludique intéressant.
D5 est un article qui concerne l'effet de l'âge des feuilles de Quassia amara et l'état de dessication sur l'activité antipaludique d'infusions traditionnelles préparées à partir des feuilles à différents états de maturité et de fraîcheur. Dans une étude antérieure, la molécule Simalikalactone D "SkD" avait été identifiée comme le composé actif. Quatre infusions avaient été préparées avec des feuilles. Les concentrations de la SkD dans chaque préparation et leur activité antipaludique y sont comparées. Il est également indiqué dans D5 que l'infusion de jeunes feuilles séchées possède une activité in vivo très puissante qui ne semble pas provenir uniquement de la molécule SkD. Selon la chambre, aucun de ces documents D2, D3 et D5 ne décrivait explicitement la molécule active SkE. Ces documents divulguent plutôt des remèdes traditionnels antipaludiques, c.-à-d. des préparations dérivées des feuilles ou des tiges d'une plante particulière, Quassia amara.
La chambre a interprété la revendication 1 comme couvrant toutes les compositions contenant la molécule SkE y compris les extraits de D2, D3 et D5, dans la mesure où ils contiennent la molécule SkE. Cependant, la question de savoir si les extraits de D2, D3 ou D5 entrent dans la portée de la revendication 1 n'était pas le critère correct pour évaluer si l'objet de cette revendication est nouveau. Pour évaluer si l'objet d'une revendication a été rendu accessible au public et donc manque de nouveauté, la "norme de référence" est le seul critère à appliquer.
Le fait que la molécule SkE puisse être contenue dans les extraits de D2, D3 et D5 n'équivalait pas non plus à une divulgation implicite. Selon G 2/88 (points 10 et 10.1 des motifs), la question qui se pose est de savoir ce qui a été rendu accessible au public, et non pas ce qui pouvait y être contenu intrinsèquement. Il n'y avait pas non plus de divulgation implicite de l'objet de la revendication 1 au regard de G 1/92: il aurait été nécessaire que la personne du métier identifie la SkE dans les extraits de D2, D3 ou D5. Étant donné que l'identification de la SkE aurait représenté un effort excessif et donc impliqué une activité inventive, la chambre a décidé que SkE ne faisait pas partie de l'état de la technique accessible au public.
La chambre a également relevé que la question en l'espèce était différente de celle dans la saisine T 438/19. Il ne pouvait ici y avoir de divulgation implicite de la SkE dans lesdits extraits, à tout le moins parce que leur identification aurait impliqué un effort excessif pour la personne du métier.
La chambre n'a pas non plus été convaincue par l'argument des requérants qui avaient fait valoir que l'objet d'une revendication ne pouvait pas être considéré comme nouveau s'il était contrefait par une utilisation existante, par exemple, par les extraits de D2, D3 ou D5. En d'autres termes, la protection conférée par le brevet donnerait à l'intimé le droit d'interdire aux populations autochtones d'utiliser les feuilles de Quassia amara pour la préparation de leurs remèdes traditionnels. Par analogie avec G 2/88, la chambre a expliqué qu'en vertu de l'art. 54(2) CBE, la question était de savoir ce qui a été "rendu accessible" au public, et non pas ce qui pouvait être "contenu intrinsèquement" dans ce qui a été rendu accessible. En conséquence, la question du "contenu intrinsèque" ne se posait pas en tant que telle dans le cadre de l'art. 54 CBE.
4.3. Taking implicit features into account
According to the boards' established case law, a prior art document anticipates the novelty of claimed subject-matter if the latter is directly and unambiguously derivable from that document, including any features implicit to a person skilled in the art. However, an alleged disclosure can only be considered "implicit" if it is immediately apparent to the skilled person that nothing other than the alleged implicit feature forms part of the subject-matter disclosed (T 95/97, T 51/10). In other words, a prior art disclosure is novelty-destroying if the subject-matter claimed can be inferred directly and unequivocally from that disclosure, including features which for the skilled person are implicit in what is explicitly disclosed (see T 677/91; T 465/92, OJ 1996, 32; T 511/92; and T 2170/13, which is a more recent decision finding that the feature at issue was implicitly disclosed in the prior art and devoting lengthy technical arguments to the point.
The limitation to subject-matter "derivable directly and unambiguously" from the document is important. According to the boards' case law on assessing novelty, the teaching of a document, independent of its nature, is not to be interpreted as embracing equivalents not disclosed in that document (see also T 167/84, T 517/90, T 536/95).
In T 701/09 the board found that direct and unambiguous disclosure was not limited to explicit or literal statements, but equally included implicitly disclosed information which a reader skilled in the art would unequivocally gather from the overall context of a cited document.
In T 1523/07 the board observed that it is a generally applied principle that for concluding lack of novelty, there must be a direct and unambiguous disclosure, either explicit or implicit, in the state of the art which would inevitably lead the skilled person to subject-matter falling within the scope of what is claimed. In this context "implicit disclosure" means disclosure which any person skilled in the art would objectively consider as necessarily implied in the explicit content, e.g. in view of general scientific laws. In this respect, the term "implicit disclosure" should not be construed to mean matter that does not belong to the content of the technical information provided by a document but may be rendered obvious on the basis of that content. Whilst common general knowledge must be taken into account in deciding what is clearly and unambiguously implied by the explicit disclosure of a document, the question of what may be rendered obvious by that disclosure in the light of common general knowledge is not relevant to the assessment of what is implied by the disclosure of that document. The implicit disclosure means no more than the clear and unambiguous consequence of what is explicitly mentioned (see T 823/96, T 297/11). Implicit disclosure means disclosure which any person skilled in the art would objectively consider as necessarily implied in the explicit content (T 2522/10 of 16 April 2015 date: 2015-04-16). T 1523/07 was cited in T 1085/13 (novelty of higher degree of purity).
In T 51/10 the board held, in summary, that, for a feature to be "implicit", it was essential that it could be unequivocally gathered from the overall context of a cited document (T 701/09) or necessarily followed from that context (T 1523/07). In particular, the skilled person had to be unable to conceive of any realistic alternative to the allegedly implicit feature (T 287/16).
In T 6/80 (OJ 1981, 434) the board found that where a further functional attribute of an element of a device disclosed in a document was immediately apparent to a person skilled in the art reading the document, such attribute formed part of the state of the art with regard to that device.
In T 666/89 (OJ 1993, 495) the board stated that the term "available" clearly went beyond literal or diagrammatical description, and implied the communication, express or implicit, of technical information by other means as well. One example of the available information content of a document extending beyond this literal descriptive or diagrammatical content was the case where the carrying out of a process, specifically or literally described in a prior art document, inevitably resulted in a product not so described. In such a case the prior art document would deprive a claim covering such a product of novelty. It was thus content, express and implied, rather than mere form, that was decisive for the issue of novelty in general, and "selection" novelty in particular (T 793/93).
In T 270/97 the opposition division considered the claimed product to be anticipated by the agent produced and inevitably obtained by repeating examples 1 and 2 of a prior art document. The board noted that it was a well-established principle laid down in the case law since T 12/81 (OJ 1982, 296) that the product inevitably resulting from a process properly defined as to its starting substance and reaction conditions was considered to be disclosed even if it was not cited expressis verbis in the prior art document. The board, however, found that the method disclosed in the text of example 2 implied a way of acting not envisaged in the method according to the patent in suit. The parties' attempts to show that the particles obtained according to example 2 were, or were not, identical to the products of the patent in suit, produced highly contradictory results. Therefore, the board could only conclude that depending on experimental conditions not disclosed in example 2 different products might be obtained. Thus, the claimed product was not inevitably obtained by following the method of example 2.
In T 583/01 the board, following T 270/97, stated that novelty was a question of inevitability and not a question of probability.
The patent at issue in T 1456/14 was for a vacuum cleaner with a filter and its claim 1 was directed to the proportion of total length to area. That no total length was disclosed in the cited prior-art document was, the board held, irrelevant for the purposes of assessing novelty if it could be demonstrated that it undoubtedly covered the claimed proportion nonetheless. To do so, it sufficed to show that even a smaller numerical value necessarily exceeded by the prior-art device would be in keeping with the claimed proportion, as this meant the prior-art document definitely had to encompass that proportion too. Whether a known device had an implicit (or even explicit) feature did not depend on whether or not the skilled person's attention was likely to be drawn to precisely that feature but on whether, from a purely objective perspective, it had to have that feature. For the criterion of "direct and unambiguous disclosure" to be met, it was not essential that the skilled person would realise the feature was included even without knowing about the patent. EPO departments were to examine disclosure with the eyes and understanding of the skilled person, but that did not mean they did not do so purposively, in full knowledge of the feature they were looking for. Such an approach did not amount to an impermissible consideration of equivalents.
In T 518/91 the board held that the logical interpretation by a skilled person of technical facts explicitly stated in a prior document – in particular the definition beyond the explicit disclosure of the document of features of the prior art described in general terms – was not part of the technical teaching implicitly derivable from the document, which the skilled person would automatically infer, if it contradicted other explicit technical information in the otherwise consistent overall disclosure of the document.
In T 2387/13 (no implicit disclosure of a possible use) the board stated that the mere fact that the disclosed electrical transmission line in D2 could be used as a sensor did not mean that a sensor was disclosed. In order for such a use to be possible, there would have to be further installations. Such installations were, however, not disclosed.
In T 624/91 it was held that exact disclosures for alloy compositions in the state of the art had to be interpreted as average or nominal values within a small range in view of known fluctuations in reproducibility and in analytical results, unless there was evidence available to the contrary. The board pointed out that, whenever a metallurgist aimed at producing an alloy in accordance with a given nominal composition, the composition of the final product would deviate somewhat from this target or even be undefined within certain narrow limits. The metallurgical production process was not ideally reproducible and the actual composition of different batches aiming at the same nominal composition would be spread over a certain area around this target (see also T 718/02, T 324/12).
In T 71/93 it was held that a feature not explicitly mentioned in a prior art document, even though generally known to help overcome a drawback usual in the same technical field, could not be considered implicitly disclosed if it were not directly derivable from the prior art document that the drawback was considered unacceptable and/or if other solutions were proposed for overcoming the drawback.
In T 572/88 and T 763/89 the boards warned against using the concept of "implicit prior description" in such a way that considerations relevant to the evaluation of inventive step were transferred to the assessment of novelty. A fair assessment of an invention's patentability called for a clear distinction between novelty and inventive step. In decision T 763/89, for example, the opponent could not claim "implicit prior description" for a material with exactly three layers, as claimed in the disputed patent, on the grounds that a skilled person, aware of the considerable outlay required for further sub-layers and the limited improvement in the quality of the image they bring, would have understood the wording of the claim, which set no upper limit for the number of layers, to be virtually synonymous with "two or three layers". To do so would be to adduce a typical criterion for the evaluation of inventive step.
Likewise in T 71/93 the board held that an "implicit prior description" of a feature could not be based on the grounds that a person skilled in the art would have been aware of some disadvantages and of the lack of other forms of improvement related to a feature, since this was a criterion for the evaluation of inventive step.