Decision T 803/17 from Board 3.2.02 is remarkable, in my opinion, not so much for what it considered important for the assessment of inventive step, but more for what the decision did not consider important.
The invention in this case relates to a computer implemented method of planning at least a part of a surgical procedure to be carried out on a body part of a patient. The method provides a "statistical shape model" of a body part and then "instantiat[es] the statistical shape model of the body part using data derived from the patient's real body part". When the method instantiates the statistical shape model, it "adapts the part of the planned surgical procedure to reflect the anatomy of the patient's real body part to automatically plan the part of the planned surgical procedure."
Claim 1 reads as follows:
"1. A computer implemented method (110) of planning at least a part of a surgical procedure to be carried out on a body part of a patient, comprising:While the official catchwords of the decision deal with the concept of reformatio in pejus in the case of an inadmissible opposition (if you are interested in this, please read here), I find more remarkable the manner in which the Board dealt with the question of inventive step, namely, the manner in which they dealt with "model"-related features and the question of whether such computer models have technical character.
providing (112) a statistical shape model of the body part; and
instantiating (116) the statistical shape model of the body part using data derived from the patient's real body part, characterised in that, the statistical shape model incorporates data representing at least a part of a planned surgical procedure to be carried out on a corresponding real body part of the patient and wherein instantiating the statistical shape model of the body part also adapts the part of the planned surgical procedure to reflect the anatomy of the patient's real body part to automatically plan (118) the part of the planned surgical procedure."
