SONN Patentanwälte – IP Attorneys

EPO Board of Appeal: Clarity regarding a relative improvement of a known effect

If a claimed invention is defined by the use of a feature known per se to achieve a technical effect known per se, and the alleged technical contribution of the invention lies in a relative improvement of this effect, the clarity requirement under Art. 84 EPC generally demands that...

EPO Board of Appeal: No interpretative somersaults in case of contradiction with the description

Even when applying the recent EBA decision G 1/24, a patent claim should not be interpreted more narrowly on the basis of features from embodiments than the person skilled in the art would understand it in view of its pure wording. In the event of a contradiction between the claim wording and the...

Workability with open-ended parameter ranges in a claim

Where the claimed invention contains a physical parameter having an open-ended range in one direction that cannot be reproduced on the basis of common general knowledge together with the rest of the invention, the range can still be regarded as reproducible over the whole claim breadth if the description...

On the adaptation of the description to the claims

The requirement that the claims are to be supported by the description does not necessarily mean that all the "embodiments" of the description of a patent application have to be covered by the (independent) claims, i.e. that all the embodiments must fall within the scope...

Admissibility of amendments to the submissions in the appeal proceedings

If amendments to the application documents which aim to overcome objections of lack of support by the description or lack of clarity which were raised in the summons to the proceedings before the appeal proceedings lead to further objections regarding clarity or extension beyond the content of...