EPO – Test cases for elucidating public availability of Internet disclosures

Koninklijke Philips Electronics N.V. (patentee) v. DSM IP Assets B. V. (opponent), Technical Board of Appeal 3.5.04, 12 March 2012, Case Nos. T 1553/06-3.5.04 "Public availability of documents on the World Wide Web/PHILIPS" and T 0002/09-3.5.04 "Public availability of an e-mail transmitted via the Internet/PHILIPS" with thanks to Stefan V. Steinbrener (Bardehle Pagenberg) for providing the case and summary

Both the European parent application 00200326.7 and its divisional 02077838.7 have been granted by the EPO to Philips and then opposed by DSM in a "joint venture" of  patentee and opponent as contrived test cases regarding the question of whether documents placed inten-tionally on the Internet constituted prior art within the meaning of Article 54(2) EPC 1973. Those documents related to (i) web pages either certified to have been found by key words entered in a search engine or merely alleged to have existed on the Internet before the filing date of the parent application, and (ii) encrypted or unencrypted e-mails sent and received before said filing date, as certified in a notarial record.