As I mentioned in my report of the oral proceedings back in June this year, the Enlarged Board in the case of G 1/15 (partial priority) promised that a decision would be made by November this year. True to their word (but only just), an order has just appeared on the EPO register today, which is dated yesterday. The order states in full:
Under the EPC, entitlement to partial priority may not be refused for a claim encompassing alternative subject-matter by virtue of one or more generic expressions or otherwise (generic "OR"-claim) provided that said alternative subject-matter has been disclosed for the first time, directly, or at least implicitly, unambiguously and in an enabling manner in the priority document. No other substantive
conditions or limitations apply in this respect.
As readers may recall, this is a response to the first question referred to the Enlarged Board, which was:
Where a claim of a European patent application or patent encompasses alternative subject-matters by virtue of one or more generic expressions or otherwise (generic "OR"-claim), may entitlement to partial priority be refused under the EPC for that claim in respect of alternative subject-matter disclosed (in an enabling manner) for the first time, directly, or at least implicitly, and unambiguously, in the priority document?
In other words, the answer to question 1 is a clear "no". All the other questions were dependent on question 1 being answered in the affirmative, so they now all fall away and need not be answered.
No reasoning has yet been provided behind the order, but this will apparently be issued "as soon as possible", according to the accompanying letter to the EPO president. For now, we can at least be satisfied that the problem of poisonous priority and poisonous divisionals has finally been laid to rest and the flawed case law from the technical boards, as well as in some court decisions (such as this one, which I wrote about here), can be set aside.
Just for the record, I would like to say that I was right all along.
The European Patent Office makes a big thing about quality. There is even a section of the EPO website about it, with several entries illustrating how well they are doing on various measures. The EPO President remarked recently that the EPO scrutinizes applications more closely than the USPTO, resulting in patents that were more legally sound. In general, based on my own experience, I would tend to agree. Sometimes, however, even the best organised systems can fail. An example I have just found out about (hat-tip to @JeremyNicholls) is European patent EP2700769B1, granted with effect from 31 August 2016. Claim 1 of this patent reads:
1. A hairdressing salon (1) comprising at least one styling station (3), which is embodied in a room (5), wherein the room (5) is arranged in a mobile structure (7), which can be displaced by means of a lifting tool, characterized in that the mobile structure (7) has at least one window (13).
The sole drawing of the patent is shown here on the right. Basically, the patent claims a hairdressing salon in a shipping container (or some other kind of mobile structure) with a window cut into it. This is not, however, even the broadest claim. Claim 9 defines "A mobile structure for a hairdressing salon according to one of claims 1 to 7". According to the usual EPO interpretation of the word "for", this would cover any shipping container (although, as a commenter notes below, it might have to have at least a window).
How this application got through the EPO system is at the moment quite beyond me. From a quick review of the prosecution file though, it seems that the examiner was persuaded that adding a window made the invention allowable over US 2006/137188 A1. Just in case anyone has any doubt about whether the invention is novel, let alone inventive, there is prior art in the form of shipping containers repurposed as hair salons such as this article from 11 June 2011 (before the 23 August 2012 priority date of the patent), which describes the popular practice of converting shipping containers to new uses in South Africa. For further avoidance of doubt, the internet archive wayback machine (which is normally accepted by the EPO as evidence of publication date) confirms that the article was available on 16 June 2011. One of the photographs in the article, shown below, seems to have everything required according to claim 1. Incidentally, the search that led me to this took about five minutes.
The EPO will certainly not be able to do anything about this particular patent, at least not unless someone bothers to make the effort of opposing the patent (which they have until the end of May next year to do). The EPO might, however, like to take a look at how such an obviously invalid claim could get through a system that is considered to be the highest quality in the world.
UPDATE 22/11/16: Thank you to the anonymous commenter who has done a bit more research and come up with the following additional pieces of prior art, which at least demonstrate that the claimed invention can be considered to cover more than just shipping containers.
The first piece of prior art is Elizabeth Taylor's trailer for the 1963 film "Cleopatra". A report on this from 21 November 2011 is available here, from which the picture below is taken. The trailer obviously had a hairdressing salon, and windows. It was sold in 2012 for over $50k, according to this report, although it cost a lot more when it was made.
The second piece of prior art is a ship, specifically the "Radiance of the Seas", as shown in the video below being brought into drydock in the Bahamas. According to this article, the ship has a salon for "hair styling, facials and other beauty treatments".
UPDATE 27/10/17: Since the opposition period has expired, and the patent has not been opposed, I have decided to request a UK Patent Office Opinion on validity. A copy of the opinion request, which was filed today, can be accessed here. I will, of course, provide updates on further progress as I hear of it.
UPDATE 3/11/17: The opinion request is now up on the IPO website, and has been allocated the number 18/17. The deadline for filing any observations is 19 November 2017.
