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Legal cartography

69 failure modes. 10 categories. One map.

IPZilla neutralises 69 documented patent failure modes drawn from US §112, EPO Boards of Appeal, the UPC, the USPTO MPEP, and the WIPO PCT — by construction of the deposit and by procedure.

Public summaryv2026.05.02 · post-G 1/24

What you see here is the categorical map: ten doctrinal buckets, one representative failure per bucket, with the source jurisprudence in mono. The full 69-failure breakdown — every parade, the exact placement of each counter-measure inside the deposit template, and the timed edge-case runbooks — is reserved for paying tiers and admins.

69
failure modes
10
categories
6
axes per claim (CIL)
10⁵–10⁸
interpretations enumerated

The ten categories

A.

Substantive validity

13 failures

§112 / Art. 83 EPC — lack of enablement on functional genus claims. Source: Amgen v. Sanofi, 598 U.S. 594 (2023).

B.

Priority

6 failures

Priority break / "same invention" test failure between PROV and PCT. Source: G 2/98 (EPO Enlarged Board, 31 May 2001).

C.

Public disclosure

7 failures

On-sale bar — confidential sale before priority date destroys novelty. Source: Helsinn Healthcare v. Teva, 139 S.Ct. 628 (2019).

D.

Inventorship

4 failures

AI listed as inventor — application irrecoverably rejected. Source: Thaler v. Vidal, 43 F.4th 1207 (Fed. Cir. 2022).

E.

Procedural / formal

11 failures

FFL (Foreign Filing Licence) cascade missed for foreign co-inventors. Source: 35 USC §184 / Section 39 IPA / CNIPA confidentiality review.

F.

Prosecution post-filing

5 failures

ODP × PTA mishandled — terminal disclaimer filed too late. Source: In re Cellect, LLC, 81 F.4th 1216 (Fed. Cir. 28 Aug. 2023).

G.

Post-grant

6 failures

Design-around via bioisostere — DOE coverage not preserved. Source: Festo v. Shoketsu Kinzoku Kogyo, 535 U.S. 722 (2002).

H.

Antitrust / commercial

4 failures

Reverse payment settlement triggers FTC scrutiny. Source: FTC v. Actavis, 570 U.S. 136 (2013).

I.

Trade secret / leak

4 failures

Ex-collaborator misappropriation — DTSA / Directive 2016/943 reasonable measures unmet. Source: DTSA, 18 U.S.C. §1836 / Directive (EU) 2016/943.

J.

Edge cases with timed runbooks

9 failures

Accidental publication during the 12-month priority window. Source: Art. 54 EPC / 35 U.S.C. §102 — playbook §11.bis Edge case 1.

Why a cartography, not a checklist

Three failure modes dominate statistically in pharma patent invalidations — §112 lack of sufficiency (Amgen), Art. 123(2) EPC added matter, and §102 public disclosure (Helsinn, Sanho). They are the most exploited because they have the highest impact-per-litigation-euro ratio. But the surface of attack is much wider, and the cartography is built so that one parade falling does not pull the others down with it (severability). Each parade cites its source jurisprudence, its parade in the deposit template, and its checkpoint in the operational checklist.

The map is updated quarterly. The current revision integrates G 1/24 (EBA EPO 2025, claim interpretation), G 1/23 (EBA EPO July 2025, non-reproducible prior art), the UPC Court of Appeal UPC_CoA_528/2024 on Amgen-style functional claims (25 Nov. 2025), and the USPTO Revised Inventorship Guidance (Federal Register, 28 Nov. 2025).

Auth-gated

View the full cartography

All 69 failures, every parade, the exact section anchors in the deposit template, and the nine timed edge-case runbooks.

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