Regulations under the PCT

Rule 65
Inventive Step or Non-Obviousness

65.1       Approach to Prior Art

For the purposes of Article 33(3), the international preliminary examination shall take into consideration the relation of any particular claim to the prior art as a whole. It shall take into consideration the claim's relation not only to individual documents or parts thereof taken separately but also its relation to combinations of such documents or parts of documents, where such combinations are obvious to a person skilled in the art

65.2       Relevant Date

For the purposes of Article 33(3), the relevant date for the consideration of inventive step (non-obviousness) is the date prescribed in Rule 64.1.