French Cour De Cassation Clarifies Requirement Of Plausibility

In Short

The Decision: The French Cour de cassation, in a case concerning a dosage regime patent, recently clarified the "plausibility" requirement, an element of sufficiency of disclosure or inventive step.

The Result: The wording of the Cour de cassation's decision creates a stringent plausibility requirement, but this decision was issued in relation to a patent claiming a specific administration mode and dosage, and a far less stringent plausibility requirement has been applied by lower courts in matters regarding other types of claims, in particular pure product or compound claims with no functional features.

The Requirement of Plausibility

The requirement for plausibility is not based in legislation, yet in Europe, a body of case law has created this requirement to distinguish those applications that actually do demonstrate a technical effect from purely speculative patents. The plausibility of the technical effect as set out in the patent also affects