The strict formalistic approach adopted by the EPO on many issues can easily lead to the applicant being trapped between various requirements of the EPC. One particularly well-known problem is the…
On 24 March, 2015, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO, the final judicial arbiter of the interpretation of the European Patent Convention, issued Decision G 3/14 addressing the question of when,…
One area where the practice of the EPO and the German Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) could not be further apart was the assessment of added matter. While the FCJ traditionally had been very lenient…
To the extent that summer 2014 existed at all in central Europe, experts agree that it is now definitely over. There is some controversy whether we ever had summer in Germany this year, but at least…
Under the principle of the prohibition of reformatio in peius, the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office are forbidden from taking a decision which puts a sole appellant in opposition appeal…
The Board observed that it could not be understood that the "technical relevance" criterion, proposed by another board in T 1906/11 for judging extension of subject matter, defines a new standard for…
An amendment of independent patent claim 1 during prosecution introduced a new feature. According to the Examining Division this led to the combinations of features of dependent claims 2-4 to extend…
The main principles applicable for assessing whether a non-disclosed disclaimer meets the requirements of Article 123(2) EPC have been laid out in the decision G 1/03 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal …
The Court held that a decision by the EPO relating to the UK designation was not capable of challenge. In any event, the procedure chosen by the claimant to challenge the decision (an application to…
