UPC CFI, CD Paris, 30 April 2025: Offside detection is a problem but its solution is obvious (to the person skilled in the art)

Patent revoked (Article 65 UPCA): lack of novelty (claim 8) and 

lack of inventive step: the skilled person, looking to improve D3 to provide a more reliable ball contact detection, would have looked in the literature of games and sports how to increase the reliability of the detection, including D2, which belongs to this technical field and teaches a solution to this technical problem. D2 provides such a solution, which answers the objective technical problem, so that it is obvious for the skilled person to use this solution within the method and system of D3. 

Inventive step (Article 56 EPC). In general, a claimed solution is obvious if, starting from the prior art, the skilled person would be motivated […] to consider the claimed solution and to implement it as a next step […] in developing the prior art. On the other hand, it may be relevant whether the skilled person would have expected any particular difficulties in taking any next step(s). Depending on the facts and circumstances of the case, it may be allowed to combine prior art disclosures. A technical effect or advantage achieved by the claimed subject matter compared to the prior art may be an indication for inventive step. A feature that is selected in an arbitrary way out of several possibilities cannot generally contribute to inventive step. 

Interpretation of main claim, dependant claims and embodiments (Article 69 EPC). Claim feature not limited to football or offside detection. A broad, general term used in the main claim is not to be limited to an understanding corresponding to the more specific or narrower features used in a dependant claim. Instead, the dependant claim merely indicates possible embodiments of the patented invention, which may be linked to additional advantages. Embodiments generally serve to describe options for realizing the invention and therefore do not generally permit a restrictive interpretation of a more general patent claim. Embodiments mentioned in the patent description only permit the conclusion that they fall under the claim; they do not restrict the scope of the patent claim. 

IPPT20250430, UPC CFI, CD Paris, Kinexon v Ballinno