In a key decision dated 20 October 2025 (UPC_CFI_189/2024), in the case between Meril Life Sciences and Edwards Lifesciences, the Paris Central Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has provided important clarifications on its approach to assessing inventive step.
A central point of discussion was the definition of the ‘person skilled in the art’. Following the parties’ debates, the Court rejected the claimant’s (Meril) proposal to broaden the team’s skills. It defined the person skilled in the art as a team comprising an interventional cardiologist and a biomedical engineer with an interest and experience in the design and construction of prosthetic heart valves, including transcatheter delivery systems (paragraph 60 of the decision).
In paragraphs 151 to 154 of its decision, the Court detailed its three-step methodology for assessing inventive step:
- Identification of the objective problem: This step must be carried out in light of the patent’s specification. The Court specifies that the problem should be identified in an abstract and neutral way to avoid the risk of hindsight, as required by the Court of Appeal’s case law.
- Identification of the state of the art: The state of the art can be represented by one or more “realistic starting points“. The Court emphasizes that the identification of these documents is left to the initiative of the parties. A realistic starting point is a document ‘of interest’ that discloses the main relevant features of the patent or addresses the same or a similar problem.
- Assessment of obviousness: This involves determining whether it would have been obvious for the person skilled in the art to arrive at the claimed solution. For this assessment, the Court advocates for a “holistic approach“, considering the invention as a whole rather than focusing solely on isolated distinguishing features.
By recalling these principles, this decision is in line with the case law established by the various divisions of the UPC and its Court of Appeal, confirming a structured and pragmatic approach to inventive step. Furthermore, this decision shows that the UPC’s approach to assessing inventive step differs from the problem-solution approach of the European Patent Office, particularly in that the technical problem does not derive from the distinguishing features.