Source: https://dp-patentlaw.blogspot.com/2010/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 10:56:16+00:00

Document:
The referral of the President to the Enlarged Board of Appeal was dismissed as inadmissible because there was no conflicting case law found. In this decision, the Board interpreted the notion "different decisions" in Art. 112(1)(b) EPC to mean "conflicting decisions". When there are no conflicting decisions, the Board does not have the capacity to make a decision. Moreover, legal development by itself cannot form the basis for a referral, only because case law in new legal or technical fields does not always develop in a linear fashion and earlier approaches may be abandoned or modified. So, the object and purpose of Art. 112(1)(b) EPC is to have an Enlarged Board decision re-establish legal uniformity when it has clearly been disrupted, not to intervene in legal development. Note that obiter dicta may be taken into account when determining whether two decisions are conflicting.
T 424/03 ("the subject-matter of claim 5 has technical character since it relates to a computer-readable medium, i.e. a technical product involving a carrier").
However, according to the Board, this difference was a legitimate development of the case law. Moreover, the earlier decision T 1173/97 was not followed in any subsequent case law on this point, whereas T 424/03 has not been challenged in any later decision.
The Board summarized the present position of the case law as follows. A claim in the area of computer programs can avoid exclusion under Art. 52(2)(c),(3) EPC merely by explicitly mentioning the use of a computer or a computer-readable storage medium. However, if a claim to program X falls under the exclusion of these provisions, a claim which specifies no more than "Program X on a computer-readable storage medium" or "A method of operating a computer according to program X" will always still fail to be patentable for lack of an inventive step under Art. 52(1) and Art. 56 EPC. Merely the article applied is different.
Most importantly in this decision, the Board has confirmed that features which are by themselves excluded subject-matter do not contribute to inventive step. The decision points to T 154/04 for a summary of the system for delimiting the innovations for which a patent may be granted. The Board further notes that they are not aware of any divergence in this case law.
The decision further elaborates on the difference in scope between a computer program and a computer-implemented method. In short, there is a logical distinction between a method carried out by a computer and the sequential list of instructions which specify that method.
The Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office has recently issued their decision in referral G1/07, about the interpretation of the expression "methods for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery". Such methods are excluded from patentability according to Art. 53(c) EPC 2000. The application which is the subject of the referring decision is about an imaging method in which Xe-129 is used as a contrast agent. The scope of the claims encompasses an injection of polarized Xe-129 into the heart.
In the decision, the Enlarged Board makes some interesting remarks First, it is stated in the decision that the Vienna Convention does not provide a general principle of narrow interpretation of exclusions from patentability. Rather, the Vienna Convention gives the general rule that a treaty shall be interpreted in good faith in accordance with the ordinary meaning to be given to the terms of the treaty in their context and in the light of its object and purpose.

References: Art. 112
 Art. 112
 Art. 52
 Art. 52
 Art. 56
 Art. 53