3. Clarté des revendications
3.3. Clarté des revendications de large portée
Dans la décision T 238/88 (JO 1992, 709) la chambre a considéré qu'à elle seule, l'étendue d'un terme du métier (par ex. "alkyle") figurant dans une revendication ne saurait réduire la clarté de celle-ci dès lors que ce terme ne présente – en soi, ou à la lumière de la description – aucune ambiguïté pour l'homme du métier (voir aussi T 950/97, T 103/00, T 1173/03, T 2068/10, T 745/11 ; voir aussi le présent chapitre, II.A.6.).
Cependant, dans l'affaire T 935/14, la chambre a également indiqué que des caractéristiques définies largement pouvaient être considérées comme étant claires à la seule condition que les limites de la – large – protection puissent être clairement déduites par l'homme du métier. C'est ce qui fait toute la différence entre "large mais clair" et "large et vague".
Dans l'affaire T 523/91, la chambre a estimé que les passages formulés comme suit : "matières plastiques associées à des matériaux d'insertion" et "lesdits matériaux, enroulés ou formant des plis, sont associés au granulat de matière plastique" ne rendaient pas l'objet de la revendication obscur au sens de l'art. 84 CBE 1973, car même s'il peut y avoir différents types d'associations, l'objet revendiqué, bien que plus large, n'en demeure pas moins clair. Or, l'étendue d'une revendication ne peut être contestée en tant que telle, elle ne peut l'être qu'en liaison avec des objections fondées sur d'autres critères tels que la nouveauté, l'activité inventive ou la possibilité d'exécuter l'invention.
Dans la décision T 688/91 aussi, la chambre a précisé qu'une revendication de large portée ne devait pas nécessairement être considérée comme obscure. La revendication en cause était rédigée comme suit : "Dispositif microprogrammé intégré [...] comportant un dispositif de génération d'états T [...] caractérisé en ce que la génération des états T [...] dépend des états T précédents et de paramètres d'état tels que les valeurs instantanées des signaux d'état ou de mode [...]". La chambre a estimé que même si l'on considère que les mots "tels que" signifient "par exemple", de sorte que les termes qui le suivent ne constituent pas une liste limitative, les termes "paramètres d'état" sont clairs dans la mesure où ils signifient que la génération d'états T dépend de grandeurs quelconques correspondant à un état du dispositif. Bien que la revendication doive être considérée comme étant de large portée du fait que les termes utilisés peuvent être interprétés de manière générale, elle ne doit pas nécessairement être considérée comme dénuée de clarté.
Dans la décision T 630/93, la chambre a noté qu'il découle de l'art. 84 CBE 1973, première phrase qu'une revendication ne doit pas toujours indiquer en détail les caractéristiques ou les étapes techniques. Bien qu'elles soient habituellement présentées en termes techniques, les caractéristiques essentielles visent bien souvent à délimiter l'invention plutôt qu'à en donner une définition dans le détail à l'intérieur de ces limites. Ainsi, les caractéristiques essentielles peuvent souvent avoir un caractère très général et, à la limite, elles pourraient même n'indiquer que des principes ou une idée nouvelle (voir aussi chapitre II.C. "Possibilité d'exécuter l'invention").
Dans la décision T 29/05, la chambre a estimé que la présence d'éléments sans rapport avec l'invention dans les revendications en question était purement hypothétique et qu'aucune preuve apportée par la division d'examen ne démontrait leur présence éventuelle dans l'état de la technique. En l'absence de telles preuves, il fallait supposer que toutes les molécules d'acide nucléique (spécifiées) sans exception avaient un rapport avec l'objet divulgué dans la demande. Le fait qu'un grand nombre de séquences d'acide nucléique puissent entrer dans le champ de la revendication ne justifie pas que soit soulevée une objection pour manque de clarté.
Dans l'affaire T 2154/11, la chambre a estimé que les objections de la division d'examen selon lesquelles les expressions "métadonnées décrivant un évènement", "prendre" et "connecter" étaient larges et englobaient des activités connues n'étaient pas en soi un motif valable de manque de clarté. Le fait que certaines étapes d'un procédé peuvent être considérées comme désignant des activités intellectuelles ou des activités humaines normales ne permet pas non plus de conclure valablement à un manque de clarté dans la mesure où, comme dans l'affaire en cause, les étapes en question ne sont pas source d'ambiguïté. Si une étape d'un procédé peut être interprétée comme faisant référence à une activité humaine normale, cela doit être pris en considération aux fins de la nouveauté et de l'activité inventive.
Le principe selon lequel une revendication de large portée ne manque pas en soi de clarté, a également été appliqué par ex. dans T 456/91, T 393/91, T 530/94, T 950/97, T 1345/08, T 2220/09, T 125/15, T 2676/16, T 901/16.
- T 147/22
Résumé
In T 147/22 the respondent (opponent) raised several clarity objections, which were mainly directed to the expression "consisting essentially of" and to the fact that the ingredients cited in claim 1 were associated with a function.
On the first aspect, the board noted that the expression "consisting essentially of" limited the ingredients in the composition of claim 1 to those defined in components (a) to (d), although further non-active ingredients could be present provided they did not materially affect the chemical stability of TAS-102. The respondent had argued that the expression "consisting essentially of" rendered claim 1 unclear because the skilled person would not know which were the compounds that did not impair the stability of TAS-102 in the composition, and the patent did not contain any information in that respect. According to the board, however, the nature and amount of those additional ingredients was strongly limited by the condition that they must not impair TAS-102 stability. Furthermore, the skilled person confronted with a composition containing components (a) to (d) and additional ingredients could easily determine whether or not the additional ingredients impair TAS-102 stability. Testing the chemical stability of active compounds in a composition was standard practice in the field of pharmaceutical formulations. Such tests were illustrated in Test Examples 1 to 5 of the patent for the particular case of TAS-102. Therefore, the skilled person could easily determine by standard comparative tests whether or not a given composition consisted essentially of components (a) to (d).
With regard to the functional definition of the ingredients in claim 1, the board held that the criterion for assessing whether a compound had the function assigned to it was the function (or functions) that the skilled person would assign to that compound in the context of a given formulation. Contrary to the respondent's view, the formulator's intention was irrelevant in that respect. It was undisputed that the functional features "excipient", "disintegrating agent", "binder", "lubricant", "flavouring agent", "colourant" and "taste-masking agent" were standard in the technical field of pharmaceutical formulations. The skilled person would have no difficulty in determining whether a given formulation ingredient fulfils one or more of these functions on the basis of common general knowledge. These were functional features which were generally allowed if the invention could not be defined more precisely without unduly restricting the scope of the invention. Furthermore, in the present case, the main ingredients were not solely defined by functional features. They were further limited by structural features: for instance, the excipient according to component (b) was selected from lactose, sucrose, mannitol and erythritol. In view of common general knowledge and the structural limitations of the functional features, the board considered that the definition of the ingredients in claim 1 was not unclear.
The respondent's objection was based on the possibility that an ingredient fulfilled more than one function and, depending on its function, the amount of the compound in the composition could vary. For instance, polyvinyl alcohol was generally known to be a binder and a lubricant. If it was considered a binder, it could be present in an amount of 0.001 to 5% by mass while it could not be present if it was considered a lubricant.
The board disagreed. The fact that polyvinyl alcohol was known to be a binder and a lubricant did not render the claim unclear. If polyvinyl alcohol was present in the composition, it necessarily played the role of a binder, even if it also fulfilled the function of a lubricant. Therefore, it should be counted as a binder that may be present in an amount of 0.001 to 5% by mass in the composition. Considering arbitrarily that polyvinyl alcohol could function exclusively as a lubricant and that therefore its presence would render the composition different from the one in claim 1 would be unrealistic. Certainly this was not how the skilled person would read the claim.
Moreover, the board stated that the fact that "excipient" was a very broad term did not mean that it was unclear. "Excipient" was a standard term in pharmaceutical formulations.
- T 1526/22
Résumé
In T 1526/22 the application related to a method (and a corresponding apparatus) for estimating a "state" of an ego vehicle, for use in a motor vehicle driver assistance system for the ego vehicle. The examining division had objected that claims 1 and 12 failed to meet the requirements of Art. 84 EPC for two reasons:
(1) the wording "the first state and the second state each include at least one local object attribute describing a local object located in the vicinity of the ego vehicle, wherein the local object is a local vehicle" did not allow to unambiguously derive the meaning of an attribute describing a local object, for example whether it was limited or not to a colour of said local vehicle; and
(2) the wording "for a motor vehicle driver assistance for an ego vehicle" suggested that an effect supporting motor vehicle assistance was to be produced, which was however not apparent from the wording of the claim.
In both cases, it was said that claims 1 and 12 had to be limited in order for the claimed subject-matter to be in agreement with the effect and problem argued by the appellant. Reference was made in that respect to the Guidelines F-IV, 4.5.1.
As regards (1) the board considered the recited feature to be broad but not unclear: "at least one local object attribute" could be any attribute of the local vehicle that was suitable for use by a driver assistance system. It could be, for instance, the local vehicle's position or velocity or even its colour (e.g. as it could be relevant for a classification of that vehicle).
As regards (2) the board interpreted the wording of claim 1 "an apparatus for a motor vehicle driver assistance system for an ego vehicle" as meaning an apparatus suitable for a motor vehicle driver assistance system for an ego vehicle, as is usual for a purpose feature in an apparatus claim in the form "apparatus for ...". Claim 1 did not require the claimed apparatus to be configured to provide the output of the state estimator as input to a driver assistance system.
Claim 12 was directed to "a method for estimating a state of an ego vehicle, the method being implemented on a compute module, the state being for use in a motor vehicle driver assistance system for the ego vehicle". The board noted that last statement appeared to define an intended use of the calculated state obtained by the claimed method. This was not a purpose feature of the kind "method for...", which could in certain circumstances be considered to imply a corresponding method step, but rather of the kind "data for...". The claim did not specify any method step in which the calculated state would be actually used for that purpose, nor did the claim comprise any other feature that would establish that said use was part of the claimed method, be it explicitly or implicitly. The board understood this feature as merely requiring the calculated state to be suitable for use in a motor vehicle driver assistance system for the ego vehicle, in which case there would be no clarity problem. However, in view of the other objections, this issue was left open.
Moreover, the board observed that the examining division had not referred to any specific passage of the description in support of its objections. Hence, the passage of the Guidelines F-IV, 4.5.1 "Objections arising from missing essential features", cited by the examining division, did not support the raised objections.
However, the board raised further objections and concluded that claims 1 and 12 lacked clarity under Art. 84 EPC. In particular, the board noted that according to the third and fourth embodiments, reflected in dependent claim 5, the prediction model and the update model were "combined into a combined ANN". In these embodiments, the combined ANN carried out an estimation of the second state taking as input the first state and the measurements of the second state but without necessarily performing separate prediction and update calculations, as suggested by claim 1. This cast doubt as to how the features of claim 1 related to the prediction and update elements were to be interpreted, rendering claim 1 unclear. Similar considerations applied to claim 12.