CPA Wins Administrative Patent Invalidation Case on Behalf of European Client
China Patent Agent (H.K.) Ltd. recently won an administrative case at the final-instance trial before Beijing Higher People's Court on behalf of a European client.
The patent application in suit pertains to the mechanics field, which was invalidated for lack of inventive step by the Patent Reexamination Board and such decision was upheld at the first-instance trial. The Beijing Higher People's Court as the second-instance court, however, held that the reference document contained no disclosure of an element sought for protection in the claims of the application, and in turn had no disclosure for the positional relationship between that element and other elements of its system, as such there was a difference in operation mode between the system of the reference document and the claimed system. Accordingly, it was concluded that the reference document did not provide technical inspiration for the claimed system, and the decision of invalidation on the ground of lack of inventive step was erroneous.
On this basis, the court revoked the previous ruling as well as the invalidation decision, and remanded the case for retrial with regard to the issue of inventive step by the Patent Reexamination Board.
