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BLOG@IP::JURPatent Attorney Axel H Horns' Blog on Intellectual Property Law.
Wednesday, July 28, 2004EPO BoA on how to understand the Term "State of the Art".In a Decision T 0172/03 dated November 27, 2003 but published only yesterday on the website of the European Patent Office (EPO) the Board of Appeal took a decision according to whichthe term "state of the art" in Article 54 EPC should, in compliance with the French and German text, be understood as "state of technology", which in the context of the EPC does not include the state of the art in commerce and business methods. The term "everything" in Article 54(2) EPC is to be understood as concerning such kind of information which is relevant to some field of technology. From these considerations it follows that anything which is not related to any technological field or field from which, because of its informational character, a skilled person would expect to derive any technically relevant information, does not belong to the state of the art to be considered in the context of Articles 54 and 56, even if it had been made available to the general public before the relevant priority date. Ricoh Company, Ltd.,, Japan, had filed a claim directed to an order management system for automatically placing an order with one of a plurality of suppliers. The Board of Appeal identified a non-empty technical contribution which was, however, deemed to be obvious.
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