No Need for ‘Plausibility’ in German Patent Law

Abstract

Abstract In the case law of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), increasing importance is being attached to the concept of ‘plausibility’, which, however, has no literal basis in the EPC. Nevertheless, many decisions in which inventive step (Art. 56 EPC) is assessed address the question of whether the claimed solution was at least ‘plausible’ at the effective date. For medical use claims, a ‘plausibility test’ is even performed for assessing sufficiency of disclosure (Art. 83 EPC). Starting from this example, the following article shows why German patent law does not need ‘plausibility’.