One contrast between Europe and some other jurisdictions,
notably the U.S., concerns the restrictive practice relating to
patent claims for medical methods. According to Art. 53 (c) of the
European Patent Convention, patents shall not be granted for
methods for treatment of the human or animal body by surgery or
therapy and diagnostic methods practised on the human or animal
body. The Enlarged Board of Appeal ("EBA") has now
provided some clarification on the first of these three exceptions,
namely surgery.
Type of Method on Which the Board Ruled
The EBA's ruling was in response to a referral from a
Technical Board of Appeal on an appeal against a refusal of a
patent application that included several independent claims to an
MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) method involving a step of
"administering" a certain imaging agent. One possible way
of administration disclosed in the application was by injection
into the heart, but the independent claims were not limited to this
alternative; inhalation by the patient was also mentioned as a
possibility, depending on the part of the body to be imaged. The
primary focus of the method was not to treat the patient but to
obtain images. Nevertheless, the claimed method certainly was
intended for use in providing images to a surgeon during an
operation.
Strict Application of the Exclusion of Medical Methods Required
The EBA ruled that a claimed imaging method that comprises or
encompasses an invasive step involving a substantial physical
intervention on the body—one that requires professional
medical expertise to be carried out and entails a substantial
health risk even when carried out with the required professional
care and expertise—is excluded from patentability as a
method of treatment by surgery. Thus, it does not matter that the
step only encompasses but does not explicitly claim such a step.
However, the EBA also ruled that, depending on the nature of the
case, embodiments with a step of this kind can in principle be
disclaimed, leaving only variants that do not include a
"forbidden" step. What form of disclaimer would be
allowable would depend on the exact circumstances of the case. In
principle, one could use terms such as "pre-administered"
to exclude the surgical administration step, or one could add to
the claim a feature such as "with the exclusion of methods
involving the surgical administration of ...."
In that case, the fact that the data obtained by means of the
method immediately allows a surgeon to decide on the course of
action to be taken during a surgical intervention does not
make the method unpatentable.
With its decision, the EBA has overruled an earlier decision of a
Technical Board of Appeal, in which it was decided that a method
that involves a non-insignificant intentional physical
intervention, but that is clearly not potentially suitable for
maintaining or restoring the health, physical integrity, or
physical well-being of a person, is not excluded from
patentability. According to the EBA now, it is the nature, not the
purpose, of a method that is to be assessed.
When Is an Intervention Surgical?
Significantly, in the reasons for its decision, the EBA
indicates that it considers earlier case law—according to
which all non-insignificant interventions performed on the
structure of an organism by noninvasive or invasive procedures are
to be considered as surgical intervention—as too
restrictive. There is no new definition, but there are some
pointers toward criteria for assessing whether an intervention is
surgical in nature.
Basically, all kinds of method that represent the core of the
medical profession's activities—those that require
medical skills and involve health risks even when performed with
the required medical professional care and expertise—are
to be considered surgical in nature and thus not patentable. The
EBA does note that, in the case of the injection of a contrast
agent or similar substance, the health risk would need to be
associated with the mode of administration, not solely with the
agent as such. Interestingly, the term "medical
profession" is apparently to be construed broadly. The EBA
states—referring to its own earlier ruling on diagnostic
methods (G1/04)—that whether an intervention is to be
considered surgical in nature does not depend on the active
participation of a medical practitioner or on his bearing
responsibility for the procedure, nor on the fact that the
intervention could also be practiced by medical or nonmedical
support staff, the patient, or an automated system.
Methods that do not affect the interests of public health or the
protection of patients and do not affect medical professionals'
freedom to apply the treatment of their choice to their patients
should be allowed. These are the kinds of safe and routine invasive
techniques, at least when performed on uncritical parts of the
body, that are commonly carried out in commercial settings such as
cosmetic salons and beauty parlors.
Furthermore, the decision confirms that claims to methods that
properly define the operation of a device, even if subsequent to a
surgical procedure (e.g., methods defining the operation
of a pacemaker) can be patentable, if novel and inventive.
A Balanced Outcome for Potential Patentees
Overall, this decision limits the range of patentable subject
matter, in that methods that are surgical by nature but not
necessarily by purpose are not deemed eligible for patent
protection. On the other hand, the EBA indicates that a method with
surgical and nonsurgical variants can be patented by disclaiming
the surgical variants. Moreover, because it indicates that whether
or not a particular intervention on the human or animal body is
surgical by nature must be assessed less strictly than set out in
previous case law, this decision certainly should encourage the
medical industry to patent its innovations in Europe. The lower
instances will now have to develop workable criteria for
determining when an invasive step constitutes a substantial
physical intervention on the body that requires professional
medical skills and involves a substantial health risk, even when
carried out with the required care and expertise.
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