Theory and practice of intellectual property
№ 6 / 2019

ISSN (Print) 2308-0361
ISSN (Online) 2519-2744

PDF (Ukrainian)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.33731/62019.188355

Published      2019-12-20

Definition of the person skilled in the art: international experience

Oleksandr Doroshenko
Ukraine

Liudmyla Rabotiahova
Ukraine

Abstract
The concept of the person skilled in tne art (PSIA ) seems to be universally accepted with respect to the assessment of patentability as well as in the analysis of the suffi ciency of disclosure and in determining the scope of the patent. There is currently no national/regional law explains or defines the term. In some countries, jurisprudences or administrative guidelines provide guidance on the meaning of the term. The International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and the Standing Committee on the Law of Patents conducted studies the definition of the PSIA in the context of the inventive step requirement in patent law. The article discusses the results of studies of the definition of the PSIA in the context of the inventive step requirement in patent law conducted by the International Association for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AIPPI) and the WIPO Standing Committee on the Law of Patents. The suggested questions will try to analyze and to understand the definition of the «PSIA» in three steps: the notion of the «person», the issue of its personal «skills» and finally the «technical field» in which these skills are exercised. The person skilled in the art is a legal fiction. The PSIA has at least the following characteristics:
a) This person possesses common general knowledge as well as knowledge in the field (or fields) to which the invention relates that the average person in that field (or fields) would be expected to have or which would be readily available to that average person through routine searches;
b) This person possesses the skills that are expected from the average person in the field (or fields) to which the invention relates;
c) This person is able to perform routine experimentation and research and can be expected to obtain predictable solutions as compared to the prior art.
The assessment of the person skilled in the art should be made as of the priority date or other relevant date under applicable law for the purposes of assessing patentability. In general, the PSIA is an individual person. Depending on the technical field and the complexity of the invention, the PSIA correspond to a team of people from different disciplines, provided that would have been a common practice in the technical field of the invention at the relevant time. The characteristics of the PSIA should be the same for the evaluation of inventiveness as for other requirements of patentability or patent validity. The exact level of knowledge and skill of this fictitious character needs to be defined for each concrete individual case, depending on the nature of the claimed invention, based on the applicable jurisprudence. There should be a common approach in formulating the definition of the PSIA applicable in administrative or legal proceedings that consider inventiveness in the context of the patentability of an invention or the validity of a patent.

Keywords: invention, The person skilled in the art, PSIA, inventive step, the level of skill in the relevant art, elements that characterize the level of skill

References

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