Recently, a patent invalidation case jointly handled by Beijing Sanju Sunshine Intellectual Property Agency Co., Ltd. and Beijing Yiju Law Firm on behalf of the petitioner, Sepu (Hangzhou) Filtration Technology Co., Ltd., was concluded. The National Intellectual Property Administration made the invalidation review decision No. 565066, declaring all the patent rights of the utility model patent No. 202221986726.3 owned by Hangzhou Cottrell Filtration Equipment Co., Ltd. for "A deep filter for laboratory use" invalid.
Article 22, Paragraph 3 of the Patent Law stipulates: "Creativity means that compared with the prior art, the invention has prominent substantive features and significant progress, and the utility model has substantive features and progress."
In this case, the patent in question claims protection for a deep filter for laboratory use. Evidence 1 discloses a multi-layer and multi-space filter. The difference lies in that Evidence 1 does not explicitly disclose that the filter is used in a laboratory.
However, as a conventional way of using filters, using a filter in a laboratory is easily conceivable to a person skilled in the art, and the technical effect that can be achieved is predictable to a person skilled in the art. On the basis that Evidence 1 discloses a filter with the same structure as claimed in claim 1 of the patent, it is obvious to a person skilled in the art to use it in a laboratory to obtain the technical solution claimed in claim 1. This technical solution does not produce any unexpected technical effect. The technical solution claimed in claim 1 does not have substantive features and progress, and thus does not possess the creativity stipulated in Article 22, Paragraph 3 of the Patent Law.
