Plausibility, sufficiency, and inventive step in patents
In the field of intellectual property, the term “plausibility†is commonly used to refer to the “trustworthiness†or “credibility†of an invention claimed in a patent application.
While its origin is still in discussion among experts, the concept of “plausibility†appears in the Case Law of the European Patent Office (EPO) since years, often related to patents in the pharma and biotechnology fields.
Additionally, this concept is used in connection with two patentability requirements clearly defined in the European Patent Convention (EPC), i.e. sufficiency of disclosure and inventive step.
The “sufficiency†requirement, according to Article 83 EPC, implies that an invention has to be sufficiently described to allow the skilled person (legal figure often referred to in patent law) to carry it out based on what the patent application describes and the general common knowledge at the time of filing the application (again another concept in patent law referring to all knowledge available in textbooks and manuals in a particular technical field). As a minimum requirement, the application should contain at least one sufficiently detailed example of how the invention can be implemented to consider it sufficiently disclosed. However, the number of examples required depends on the case, particularly on the scope of protection requested by the claims.
The “inventive step†requirement, according to Article 56 EPC, implies that to be considered patentable, an invention should not be obvious for the skilled person in view of the state of the art.
