EP 3 747 100 B1 relates to a surge arrestor dimensioning in a DC power transmission system.
Brief outline of the procedure
The OD considered that claim 1 as granted lacked N over D6=Wenxia Pan, Xun Liu and Dingzhen Nie, “Development and application of insulation coordination program for UHVDC converter stations,” 2008 Third International Conference on Electric Utility Deregulation and Restructuring and Power Technologies, 2008, pp. 2262-2266, doi: 10.1109/DRPT.2008.4523787.
AR1 was lacking IS over D6+CGK. The OD considered that none of AR2-19 were novel over D6.
The OD thus revoked the patent.
The board revoked the patent for lack of compliance with Art 83.
The proprietor’s point of view
The proprietor referred to paragraph [0065] of the patent, which states that the invention may also be applicable to asymmetric monopole systems, in which case there was no second converter and no second neutral bus.
The proprietor further argued that, by following this instruction and removing the second converter and the second neutral bus from the system of figure 4, the person skilled in the art would recognise that the resulting monopole system includes a first converter and two neutral buses, namely the first neutral bus (NB1) and the common neutral bus (CNB).
The proprietor also argued that the first converter was not part of the claimed neutral arrangement, but only part of the converter station to which the neutral arrangement is connected.
The proprietor also asserted that a monopole arrangement does not fall within the scope of claim 1, on the basis that the skilled person would recognise the contradiction with the presence of multiple neutral buses and therefore exclude such an arrangement from claim 1.
The opponent’s point of view
The opponent contended that the arrangement as seen by the proprietor was not technically feasible.
The opponent also referred to the Oxford English Dictionary definition of the word ‘group’.
The board’s decision
In the present case, the assessment of sufficiency of disclosure under Art 100(b) hinged on the interpretation of the term “a group of neutral buses” in claim 1, specifically whether it encompasses a single neutral bus.
The board arrived at the conclusion that, in the context of claim 1, the expression “a group of” denotes a plurality of elements, as evidenced by the use of the plural forms “surge arrestors” and “neutral buses” in the claim language.
The board further considered that the Oxford English Dictionary definition cited by the opponent is not pertinent to the technical context of claim 1.
Furthermore, the description does not provide support for construing “a group” as comprising only a single surge arrestor or neutral bus. Consequently, the board concluded that, even under the broadest reasonable interpretation, a group within the meaning of claim 1 cannot consist of only a single element.
For the board, the patent fails to provide adequate information enabling the person skilled in the art to implement a neutral arrangement suitable for use in a converter station of a direct current power transmission system comprising a first converter and a group of neutral buses, i.e. with more than one neutral bus.
The patent describes the claimed invention in detail only in the context of the embodiment shown in figure 4, which relates to a bipolar system including first and second converters and a group of neutral buses. It is not apparent how the system could be realised as a monopole system while still comprising multiple neutral buses.
None of the arguments brought forward by the proprietor convinced the board.
The board considered that removal of the second neutral bus (NB2) would not result in two distinct remaining neutral buses (NB1 and CNB), but rather in a single neutral bus connected to the converter station. The neutral buses NB1 and CNB would effectively constitute a single neutral bus after removal of the second neutral bus NB2. The proprietor did not provide convincing arguments as to how a skilled person could implement more than one neutral bus with only a single converter in a monopole system.
The bord was of the opinion that the arrangement as seen by the proprietor was not technically feasible.
The bord held that the neutral arrangement as claimed is “for a converter station […] comprising: a first converter” and must therefore be suitable for connection to a converter station with only one converter, as defined in claim 1.
In the board’s view, claim 1 is explicitly directed to the use of the neutral arrangement with a monopole system by explicitly defining in claim 1 the presence of only one first converter. It was therefore not reasonable to assume that the skilled person would consider the use of the claimed neutral arrangement in a monopole system to be excluded from the claimed scope.
The claim as granted=MR was thus not sufficiently disclosed and the ground under Art 100(b) prejudices maintenance as granted..
Claim 1 of each of the AR0.1-0.11, 1.0-1.11, 2.0-2.11, 3.0-3.11, 4.0-4.11 and 5.0-5.11 is limited only to a neutral arrangement for a converter station comprising a first converter in conjunction with a group of neutral buses.
The board’s observations regarding the MR under Art 100(b) therefore apply equally to each of the AR.
The proprietor has not presented any further arguments in this regard.
Comments
Normally a lack of sufficiency applies when looking at the original disclosure as whole.
Here the description only discloses a bipolar system, but the claim also encompasses a monopolar system, which appears not technically feasible.
Paragraph [0065] is a classical paragraph attempting to generalise the original disclosure. Why did the proprietor not delete Paragraph [0065]?
It is difficult to follow the proprietor when it alleges that a monopole system includes a first converter and two neutral buses, namely the first neutral bus (NB1) and the common neutral bus (CNB). In this situation there can only be one single bus, and yet the claim mentions a plurality of busses.
Comments
Leave a comment