The Enlarged Board of Appeal in reply to three questions of law submitted to it, concludes as follows: Question 1: When an international application is filed and published under the PCT in an…
1. The Enlarged Board of Appeal considered the meaning that is to be given to the exclusion of patents on methods for ‘treatment by surgery’ (Article 53(c) EPC). The current construction used by the…
Correction of a letter of withdrawal under Rule 139 EPC is only possible if the public has not yet been officially informed about the withdrawal.
A full summary of this case has been published on…
The patent proprietor appealed a decision of the Opposition Division, wherein the Opposition Division decided to maintain the patent in amended form. In appeal the patent proprietor filed a new main…
In this case the board ruled that a claimed measurement method was excluded as a method of treatment by therapy under Article 53(c) EPC because it encompassed administering a compound that could have…
In case of parallel proceedings before a national court and the Boards of Appeal, parties should inform both tribunals of this position as early as possible. In order to avoid duplication of…
This decision of the Board of Appeal covers two questions of interest: 1) May an Opposition Division include an obiter dictum in its decision? (The answer in this case is yes.) 2) To what extent is…
The appellant in this case filed a statement of grounds against the decision of the examining division to refuse a patent application. For the main request this statement only stated that it was…
A claim violates Article 123(2) EPC when an added claim term has two reasonable interpretations, one of which violates article 123(2) EPC. An amendment selecting the interpretation that does not…
