Translation of "Fehlende neuheit" in English

Frequent grounds for cancellation are lack of inventive step or lack of novelty.

At the forefront of the nullity reasons are lack of novelty and lack of inventive step.

The most common grounds for opposition are lack of novelty and lack of inventive step.

Although lack of novelty was mentioned as a ground of opposition and was dealt with in the decision under appeal, it was not relied on at all in the statement of the grounds of appeal.

The Opposition Division held that the grounds for opposition submitted by the appellant under Article 100 (a) EPC (lack of novelty, Article 54 EPC, and lack of inventive step, Article 56 EPC) did not prejudice the maintenance of the patent in suit in amended form.

The contested decision had merely addressed objections under Art.123(2) and 84 EPC although lack of novelty and lack of inventive step had also been raised as grounds for opposition.

If the examiner finds any formal defects or lacking novelty or inventiveness you may amend the claims and file arguments on novelty and inventiveness.

In respect of an alleged lack of novelty and inventive step the opposition was essentially based on

Furthermore, knowledge of the preamble's features is not on its own enough to substantiate lack of novelty for the claim's entire subject-matter.

According to established case law, it is a prerequisite for the acceptance of lack of novelty that the claimed subject-matter is "directly and unambiguously derivable from the prior art".

This is confirmed by e.g. T 450/89, in which the board stated that "a conclusion of lack of novelty ought not to be reached unless the prior art document contains a clear and unmistakable disclosure of the subject-matter of the later invention" (in this context, see also T 677/91) (cf. T 763/07).

By its action for annulment, the plaintiff submits that EP 0 942 880 should be annulled on account of an inadmissible change in the content of the application and lack of patentability (lack of novelty and lack of inventive step).

The action brought by three companies was successful in part because the BPatG found that the contested patent lacked patentability, with reference to a lack of novelty and inventive step.

Let us consider now the cases that lead to a limitation or to a complete invalidation of the patent. Almost 75 % of these decisions were based on lack of novelty or lack of inventiveness.

Since lack of novelty presupposes the presence of all the claimed features in one and the same known subject-matter, it should at the very least have been indicated which of these three known subject-matters was prejudicial to the novelty of the contested patent.

The court observed that a lack of novelty could be established only if it were shown that the subject-matter could be derived clearly, precisely, unambiguously and directly from the prior art and that all the disclosed features were already known.

The examining division refused the patent application for lack of novelty.

Both oppositions gave lack of novelty and inventive step as the grounds of opposition.

The present appellants filed opposition to the patent on 10 February 1984 on the grounds of lack of novelty and inventive step, citing a number of documents of which ultimately only (1b) GB-A- 1 294 725 remained under discussion.

The facts adduced in support of the cited ground for opposition - lack of novelty - have not therefore been given since there is no indication which of the 24 combinations of features claimed in Claim 1 of the contested patent is or are supposedly already known.

According to this decision, a disclaimer would be an acceptable limitation since the inventive teaching originally disclosed in the application would not be changed by "excising" in the form of a partial waiver (Teilverzicht) only that part of the teaching which the applicant cannot claim because it lacks novelty.

According to the board in T 1201/00, if a case is likely to have to be remitted to the opposition division for it to assess the unexamined issue of inventive step, a new auxiliary request first submitted during oral proceedings before the board designed to overcome an objection of lack of novelty compared with a cited document may exceptionally be admitted and also remitted to the opposition division for final novelty examination against that document if none of the requests that took precedence can be granted for lack of novelty.

The deed III with the prior final reference C, E, F to the document V should thus be deleted, owing to lack of novelty.

The appellant asked the court to revoke claims 1 to 8 of the French part of the patent on the grounds of lack of novelty and/or inventive step and, in any event, on the ground of insufficiency in the description.

Both opposition 1 and opposition 4 cite lack of novelty and lack of inventive step as their grounds for opposition and therefore have the same legal framework.

If the non-disclosed examples belong to the state of the art, the genre could not be claimed because of a lack of novelty. The CAFC addresses two earlier decisions.

At the hearing, the experienced HOFFMANN EITLE attorney took the lead and convinced the Opposition Division of the lack of novelty of the granted claims and the inadmissibility of all auxiliary claim sets.

But in their reply to the communication under Rule 58(4) EPC (letter dated 13 March 1989) the appellants stated unequivocally that they still believed the patent should be revoked for lack of novelty, or at the least for lack of inventive step.

III. The patent in its entirety was opposed on the grounds that its subject-matter lacked novelty and an inventive step (Article 100(a) EPC) and its invention was not sufficiently disclosed (Article 100(b) EPC).

II. During the opposition proceedings, the opponents had raised the grounds for opposition according to Articles 100(a) (lack of novelty and lack of inventive step), 100(b) and 100(c) EPC.

An opposition was filed pursuant to Article 100(a) and (b) EPC for lack of novelty, lack of inventive step and lack of sufficient disclosure.