2/2025

CH KILGER wins EPO APPEAL

EPO REVOKES SINGLE CELL BARCODING PATENT EP 2 625 320 B1

Representing an undisclosed client, CH KILGER attacked the EUROPEAN PATENT EP 2 625 320 B1 in an Opposition before the European Patent Office in December of 2019.

The patent owned by HARVARD University and designating George Church, amongst others as inventors, allegedly provided methods and compositions for high-throughput, single cell analyses. The methods could allegedly be used for analysis of genomes and  transcriptomes, as well as antibody discovery, HLA typing, haplotyping and drug discovery.

The patent was upheld by the European Patent Office in the first instance after multiple first instance oral proceedings had taken place. CH KILGER appealed this decision. The appeal was decided in January of 2025. Since the Patentee revoked its approval of the previously granted text of the patent after the first instance, a decision on the merits was made impossible for the Board of Appeal. Revoking the approval of the previously granted text is a technique some patentees apply thereby trying to avoid a written decision on the merits of the case (See e.g. T 86/84). The patent family comprises also multiple US counterparts. Of course, the potential merits may also be found for example in the preliminary opinion provided for by the Board of Appeal. The Board of Appeal (3.3.08) in its decision T 0087/23 (11831761.9) nonetheless revoked the patent pointing to the established case law of T 186/84.