Saturday 10 October 2009

T 254/06 - Forget About Best Mode

The examining division (ED) refused the application on the grounds that claim 1 was not supported by the description, A 84. [II]

Present claim 1 specifies that “the device is adapted to generate L addresses, which are smaller in number than N = Ng x 2^m virtual addresses for reading data from said interleaver memory in which L data bits are stored". The board notes that in the contested decision the ED reasoned that the definition “L addresses, which are smaller in number than N = Ng × 2^m virtual addresses” was meaningless because for any value of L, infinitely many combinations of m and Ng could be found, for which L is smaller than Ng × 2^m. According to the ED, claim 1 did not imply anything about optimal choices of m and Ng. […]

The device as set out in the description is able to generate L addresses, which are smaller in number than N = Ng x 2^m virtual addresses. It may indeed be true that claim 1 does not imply anything about optimal choices of m and Ng, but it is not a requirement of the EPC, and in particular not a requirement of A 84, that the claims should specify the optimum way of carrying out the invention. Hence, the board sees no reason to object to the claimed feature that “the device is adapted to generate L addresses, which are smaller in number than N = Ng x 2^m virtual addresses for reading data from said interleaver memory in which L data bits are stored”. [3.1] 

Notwithstanding this criticism of the impugned decision, the Board finally rejected the appeal because it found the claims to be insufficiently disclosed.

To read the whole decision, click here.

0 comments: