EPO, Oral Proceedings / NGAL cutoff-patent (III)

The Reasons for the decision by the EPO, regarding the revokation of the NGAL cutoff-patent are now available at the EPO website, in a document titled: “The Grounds for the decision”

In short – the OD does not find that the invention fulfills article 83 and article 100 (summary on page 11) –  I’ll elaborate a bit more on this once I’ve had the time to study the message more thoroughly. But at first glance, it looks as if the scalability of the invention is the problem – that the invention cannot be used over the entirety of the area that the patent is protecting, in that respect OD reiterates the misinterpretation of the scientific results that led to the appeal in the first place…(although BioPorto has repeatedly tried to correct OD’s mistake)

Further OD involves CRF (Chronic Renal Failure) which in my book is a mistake… although CRF is a renal disorder, the cut-off patent is aiming at identifying those who suffer from AKI (Acute Kidney Injury) – if for no other reason most people would be able to distinquish between Chronic and Acute….

The first semi-official reaction from BioPorto can be found here (unfortunately in danish) – however they interpritate the conclusion somewhat differently – stating that the reason for the revokation is that is that the description of the method is not sufficient

Anyways – untill I have a more fullfilling statement from Høiberg, we are all at sea.. (please see update underneath) Importantly – however – the Patent is valid until at least 2014 (where we hope for a more positive verdict from the Technical Appeal Board), and – the supplementary patents (including but not limited to the Trauma/triage-patent) are not affected.

Further the decision does not affect the ongoing FDA-trial or the USPTO (US equivalent to EPO)

“Latest Update.”