Unanswered questions surrounding the European Patent Office’s (EPO) decision to allow evidence submitted after a patent application is filed to be used to prove whether the patent is “plausible” are mounting. Recently decision makers at the EPO clarified patent filing practice and the concept of plausibility in patent applications.
Finnegan partner Antje Brambrink told Law360, "When I read this decision, I thought that they did not really answer the question, so I think it was not as clear to me as I would have wished it was. What I have taken away is that I understand that late-filed data must be taken into consideration, but there still must be sufficient information in the application to establish the plausibility.”
"The problem is that the decision relates solely to plausibility for inventive step, so the assessment of plausibility for sufficiency was not really discussed,” said Antje.
She noted that the decision is also light on the details of how much information it is necessary to file to make a patent credible in the first place.
Read “Patent Plausibility Faces Uncertain Future at the EPO”
