Patent decision

BL number

O/039/08

Concerning rights in

EP0824313

Hearing Officer

Mr P Back

Decision date

13 February 2008

Person(s) or Company(s) involved

GAT Microencapsulation Gmbh and Syngenta Ltd

Provisions discussed

Section 72

Keywords

Amendment, Inventive step, Revocation, Sufficiency

Related Decisions

None

Summary

An application for revocation of the patent was made by GAT Microencapsulation Gmbh. Syngenta did not attempt to defend the patent as granted. Instead, it proposed amendments to the claims and sought to defend the patent as amended from the allegations of lack of inventive step and insufficiency. GAT objected to the attempt to amend, and also maintained that the amendments did not overcome its objections in any event. The Hearing Officer found the amendments to be allowable and that the attacks based on insufficiency and lack of inventive step failed. He accordingly found the patent as amended to be valid.

Full decision O/039/08 69Kb