EP 3 921 574 B1 relates to a lighting device comprising a light generating element and a microlens array comprising a focal plane so that it is possible to mimic a moving light source at different viewing angles.
Brief outline of the case
The opposition was rejected and the opponent appealed.
The board held that claim 1 as granted lacked N over D6=WO 2013/011410. The same applied to AR1.
The board decided that claim 1 of AR2 was allowable and remitted to the OD for adaptation of the description.
The whole discussion turned about the meaning to give to the term “micro-lens” in the micro-lens array 4.
The OD held that D6 lacked an indication with regard to the size of the Fresnel lenses used. They further considered a micro-lens to have a size in the µm range such that the array of Fresnel lenses of D6 could not be considered as an array of micro-lenses as claimed in claim 1.
Both parties agreed that this corresponds to the normal understanding of the term “micro-lens” used by the skilled person.
The opponent’s point of view
The opponent argued that, after passing through a first lens, the resulting beam of light fans out into a bundle of rays that produce a projection approximately 7 cm wide at a distance of one meter (100 cm multiplied by sin 2° = 3,49 cm to the left and to the right from the central axis), which can be considered a normal viewing distance.
As a consequence, all beams of light from other lenses of the array of lenses within a distance of 3,49 cm from the first lens interact with the projection from the first lens. If the lenses’ pitch of the array of lenses is assumed to be in the range of 0,1 mm (i.e. 100 µm and hence the lenses being micro-lenses, about 700 rays would interact both in the horizontal and vertical direction, i.e. light from a total of 490.000 lenses would be visible for a user having its eye in the central axis of the first lens.
The board’s decision
The board noted that Paragraph [0016] of the description discloses that “a person looking at the lighting device will only see one or a few light extraction elements and thus one or a few light beams, because the light from all other light extraction elements will not reach his eyes”, and paragraph [0078] that “the viewer will see only one (or a few) aperture(s); the light from all other light extraction elements does not reach the eye”. Furthermore, as set out in paragraph [0069] of the description, the beams of light may have a beam half-angle of 2 degrees or less.
The board noted that a human’s pupil has a certain diameter (which is variable but anyway in the range of about 2 to 8 mm ), that the light source as such has a diameter and only uses a conservative assumption of the size of the micro-lenses compared to the parties’ submissions since a lenses’ distance of 100 µm is an assumed pitch at the upper end of the range of distances falling under the term ” µm range”. A pitch less than 100 µm would, however, result in an even higher number of lenses.
The information given in paragraphs [0016] and [0078] that a person looking at the lighting device will see one or a few beams of light only, is thus in clear contradiction with the normal meaning of the term “micro-lens”.
As a result, the term “micro-lens” cannot be construed in the restricted manner as done by the OD. Taken in the context of the patent as a whole, the term micro-lens used in claim 1 cannot be read as referring to a lens having a size in the range of µm, but, in a much larger range, e.g. of millimetres.
The board further noted that the patent in suit does not provide any information about the size of the “micro-lens” used.
The board held that
(a) there is no evidence of a generally recognized definition of this term, and
(b) it would anyway be contradicted by the description.
Under these circumstances, the board saw no justification to attribute a specific limitation to the term “micro-lens” other than that the lens is a relatively small one.
The board held that the lenses of the embodiment of figure 5a of D6 serve the same purpose as the lenses of the patent in suit because
- both the patent in suit and D6 intend to create a skylight appearance using a combination of diffuse light and collimated directed light; and that
- both devices are intended to be used within a building such that it is reasonable to assume that the devices have also comparable dimensions, including the size of the lenses, being relatively “small”.
Therefore, the embodiment of figure 5a of D6 anticipated the subject-matter of claim 1 as granted.
Comments
The board referred to G 1/24 to conclude after “consulting” the description that the lens array claimed could not be defined as a “micro-lens” array, i.e. in the µm range, but rather in the mm range.
G 1/24 has not finished to surprise us.
On the procedure
The ISR established by the EPO only mentioned 2 documents classified in category A. The search was carried out in F21V, F21W, F21Y and G02B.
Among very similar classes for the patent and D6, both documents bore a least on classification unit in common: F21W 121/00.
It is thus surprising that D6 was not revealed during the EPO search.
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