Updates on EPC, PCT, EPO case law and the e-EQE

The patent relates to the field of orally administrable pharmaceutical dosage units such as soft chews, especially for administration to non-human animals.

Chews comprising pamoic acid or a pharmaceutically acceptable salt thereof can be easily processed in forming machines and therefore facilitates manufacturing such soft chews on an industrial scale.

Brief outline of the case

The patent was revoked as the OD came to the conclusion that claim 1 of the MR filed during opposition was infringing Art 123(2).

The patent relates to humanized antibodies that recognize human IL-23p19 and modulate its activity, particularly in inflammatory, autoimmune and proliferative disorders.

The case is interesting as it deals with the exercise of discretion by the OD when not- admitting late filed submissions of the opponent.

Brief outline of the procedure

The patent was revoked for lack of sufficiency by the OD.

Brief outline of the case

The OD rejected the opposition.

The opponent appealed.

By decision T 760/17, the board decided not to admit a series of late-filed AR under Art 13(2) RPBA20. It also decided to revoke the patent for lack of IS of claim 1 as granted and of all AR I-IX which were timely filed.

The patent relates to an apparatus and method for providing metered amounts of ingredients to a nutritional composition for use in administration to an infant.

Brief outline of the case

The OD held that the MR before it lacked clarity and revoked the patent.

The proprietor appealed the decision.

The update of our EPC.App reference book to legal status of 1st April 2023 is completed. Key changes since the last update in November were the new EPO Guidelines as of March 2023, G 2/21 on plausibility, amendments to Rules 46, 49, 50, 57, 82 on format requirements of application documents as well as to Rule 65 on the transmittal of the search report, the increase of EPO fees, and the upcoming UPCA entry into force.

In the self-editable online version of our EPC commentary, all changes of the update are rolled-out automatically, while personal user annotations from before the update are retained. They can be exported into a customized printable PDF offline version, which may further be ordered as colored paperback via the integrated print-on-demand service. As usual, we also released this 10th edition as standalone softcover books in English or German with same content.