The traditional law of insufficiency Essay Example

claim width doctrine and the incomplete development of certain historical fields, the argument states that a patent specification should include enough information to fully perform the claimed invention. This aims to restrict patent eligibility in order to avoid hindering industrial and technological progress in this specific area.

The text highlights the legal principle established by Lord Hoffman which states that the extent of a patent monopoly, as defined by the claims, should correspond to the technical contribution to the art in order to avoid over-monopolizing a young science field. Lord Hoffman concluded that claiming a monopoly on any recombinant method of making antigens is not justified because the essential features disclosed in the specification do not enable a skilled person in the art to achieve the scope of invention. This analysis resonates with the HoL's ruling in Biogen, which introduces a new principle of insufficiency that applies to all types of claimed inventions and their disclosure in the specification. However, this unified rule has faced criticism.Lundbeck renounced their previous stance due to the Biogen insufficiency. Lord Hoffmann disagreed with his colleague, Kitchen J., as he believed that the Biogen insufficiency only applies to product-by-process claims. He argued that the relevant technical contribution should be attributed to the method, not the product itself. Lord Hoffmann acknowledged that even if only one method is disclosed in the patent specification, simple product claims are not affected by the Biogen insufficiency.

Furthermore, Lord Hoffmann clarified that the Biogen insufficiency does not necessarily imply that simple product claims must also support all methods of creating the product, according to the respective statutory provisions and EPC statues mentioned earlier. In the Conor

Medsystems case, it was affirmed that the concept of 'sufficiency disclosure' is linked to the invention itself as defined in the claims. Therefore, when determining the inventive step, only the invention defined in the claims needs to be considered, not the disclosure in the patent specification. As a result, there is still room for debate regarding the interpretation of the scope of invention. In other words, during times of industrialization or technological advancements, such as contemporary biotech, disclosure serves not only to limit the inventor's monopoly right outlined in the patent claims but also to facilitate technology transfer and knowledge diffusion.