More guidance on inventive step: The person skilled in the art and common general knowledge according to the UPC

In its decision of 16 January 2026, the Paris Local Division provided more detailed clarification on the concepts of "person skilled in the art" and "common general knowledge". The decision was issued in main proceedings concerning the validity and infringement of a patent relating to a locking device for vehicle doors.

Person Skilled in the Art

According to the ruling, a "person skilled in the art" is someone who works in the technical field in which the technical problem that the invention aims to solve arises. The person skilled in the art has basic technical knowledge and medium-level skills and undergone average training and gained average practical skills and experience. The person skilled in the art is able to perform routine tasks in line with their general knowledge of the relevant field, and the relevant state of the art.

However, as already clarified by the Court of Appeal in a previous and relevant ruling, the person skilled in the art does not possess inventive capacity of their own, but generally needs an indication or motivation guiding them towards the invention covered by the patent starting from a realistic starting point.

Common General Knowledge

As for the notion of "common general knowledge", according to the Court, this includes knowledge that an expert in the field is supposed to possess or can obtain from reliable sources commonly used in the technical field, such as manuals, scientific texts, encyclopedias or specialist databases in current use. However, it does not include any confidential documents, such as industrial designs that are not accessible to the public, or products whose functioning cannot be easily understood without further operations, such as disassembly.

The decision also confirmed what had previously been stated by the Central Division in Paris, namely that "common general knowledge" does not necessarily coincide with everything that is publicly accessible (so-called "public knowledge"). Such public knowledge may also include knowledge that goes beyond information available from common sources or even beyond the relevant technical field.

With regard to the burden of proof, the Court reaffirmed the principle that it is up to the party invoking certain knowledge to prove that it actually belonged to the common technical knowledge at the date of filing of the patent application or any relevant priority date.

Outcome of the case

In the case at hand the Claimant had unconditionally limited the claims of the asserted patent by introducing additional features in the course of the proceedings.

Based on the then limited claims and applying the principles summarised above to the case in question, as well as the additional criteria previously developed by the Court of Appeal for assessing inventive step, the Court found the patent to be valid and infringed.