Translation of "Allgemeines fachwissen" in English

Extensive general specialist knowledge exists on these electron-repelling or electron-attracting effects by substitution and on the structure of the particular substituents.

Where such teaching results from a product put on the market, the person skilled in the art will have to rely on his general technical knowledge to gather all information enabling him to prepare the said product.

It also stated that " An essential purpose of any technical teaching is to enable the person skilled in the art to manufacture or use a given product by applying such teaching. Where such teaching results from a product put on the market, the person skilled in the art will have to rely on his general technical knowledge to gather all information enabling him to prepare the said product. Where it is possible for the skilled person to discover the composition or the internal structure of the product and to reproduce it without undue burden, then both the product and its composition or internal structure become state of the art."

In order to arrive at the conclusion that the requested correction was the only physically meaningful one, experiments had had to be performed which needed more than common general knowledge, and the results thereof would not have been available on the date of filing.

In the Board's view, a skilled reader of the application as filed would seriously contemplate the use of only one light source when carrying out the described invention in accordance with his practical output intensity requirements, and there is nothing in the application as filed or in his common general knowledge which would cause the skilled person to understand that the reference at page 16, lines 14 to 17, to less than three light sources is intended to exclude the possibility of using only one light source.

An assertion that something is common general knowledge need only be backed by documentary evidence (for example, a textbook) if this is contested (seeG?IV, 2).

Furthermore, there is no literature reference suggested in relation to the method outlined in paragraph 8d, on page 12, line 33 to page 13, line 8 and Figure 15, which could be accepted as representing common general knowledge about such methodology on the date of the application.

In T 989/93 the board stated that, in the absence of the appropriate common general knowledge, no conclusions are possible on the basis of the known properties of one group of chemical compounds (here: benzene derivatives) regarding the properties of a different group of chemical compounds (here: naphthalene derivatives).

The applicant may cite documents in the application which relate to standard technical knowledge (background art neither addressing the same technical problem nor necessary to complete the disclosure of the claimed invention).

This means that the information in such a publication must have already become part of common general knowledge some time before the date of publication.

In this respect he submitted, relying on decisions T 21/83 and T 157/87, that any common general knowledge relied upon against the patentability of a patent application would have to be substantiated by reference to a particular document or documents.

The appellant has further admitted during the oral proceedings that he was not aware of any common general knowledge which might have enabled the skilled person to find further ways for obtaining fuel oils having the claimed particle size.

Supported by documents, literature or generally avaible specialist knowledge, the Examining Division can of course doubt whether the amendment or introduction of a feature is actually technically relevant, particularly when such a correction of the claim should be critical for novelty or inventive step.

Evidence of what constituted such knowledge on that date could be furnished in any suitable form.

D10 is a text book and D05 an article from a popular scientific magazine, so that both can be regarded as disclosing common general knowledge that would be taken into account by the notional skilled person.

It is considered common general knowledge here that such interface-active compounds have amphiphilic character—that is, they are generally composed of molecules with a hydrophilic and a hydrophobic moiety.

It is general technical knowledge that a cell takes up different amounts of H 2 O depending on the degree of respective metabolic activity.

The test formats for carrying out the immunological method for detecting an analyte have been exemplified in more detail in one of the above sections and moreover are general technical knowledge to a person skilled in the art.

An amendment to a claim by the introduction of a disclaimer disclaiming from it subject-matter disclosed in the application as filed infringes Article 123(2) EPC if the subject-matter remaining in the claim after the introduction of the disclaimer is not, be it explicitly or implicitly, directly and unambiguously disclosed to the skilled person using common general knowledge, in the application as filed.

The indexes of Chemical Abstracts cover virtually the whole state of the art, and represent therefore much more than what is assumed to be the common general knowledge of the addressee of the specification.

It was common knowledge among experts in the field that enantiomers often differed in their activity because they generally functioned via enzymes in the organisms treated, which for their part were optically active.

At the same time the appellant admitted that the description did not disclose any other method of obtaining the desired crystal size than the addition of certain additives to the fuel oil and also that there was no common general knowledge of making fuel oils of this kind available to the person skilled in the art.

Indeed the appellant, already in its statement setting out the grounds, point L) and the RÉSUME on page 8, mentioned the skilled person and what he would be capable of, i.e. his common general knowledge ("la technique proposée dans le brevet Nestec....en découle de façon évidente pour tout homme de métier").

In ex parte case T1090/12, the appellant drew attention to the Guidelines G-VII, 3.1, which reads: "an assertion that something is common general knowledge need only be backed by documentary evidence (for example, a textbook) if this is contested", and submitted that this passage was binding on the boards of appeal when exercising the power of the examining division.

It is also general knowledge in the art that the ignition limit of the gaseous mixture shifts in the direction of lower oxygen concentrations as pressure increases (see (d) column 1, lines 64-66).

An amendment to a claim by the introduction of a disclaimer disclaiming from it subject-matter disclosed in the application as filed infringes Art.123(2) EPC if the subject-matter remaining in the claim after the introduction of the disclaimer is not, be it explicitly or implicitly, directly and unambiguously disclosed to the skilled person using common general knowledge, in the application as filed.

Thus to require that the skilled person carry out a search in Chemical Abstracts to remedy insufficiencies in the description in a patent application would be unacceptable, as this would effectively require that the skilled person have, as common general knowledge, an exhaustive knowledge of the state of the art.