António de Magalhães Cardoso, Disputes & Restructuring Group Senior Partner, is the author of the article titled 'The question of the plausibility of the technical effect of the invention in the case law of the European Patent Office', published in the Intellectual Property Law Review of the Portuguese Intellectual Property Law Association (APDI).
The article focuses on the possible requirement that European patent applications contain sufficient information for a person skilled in the art to regard the invention’s technical effect as real or, at least, plausible. Although the European Patent Convention does not expressly require proof or plausibility of the technical effect, the case law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) has debated this issue for decades, culminating in decision G 2/21 (23 March 2023), which addressed divergences in the case law on the matter. While decision G 2/21 clarified certain aspects of this issue, it did not entirely eliminate the existing divergences. Following the decision, the Boards of Appeal have continued to apply, in varying ways, the criteria of “ab initio plausibility”, “ab initio implausibility” and “non-plausibility”.
- Read the article here.
