Hands-on commentary on UPC decisions, key developments in IP law, and news from SONN.
This decision specifies the permissible scope of the clarity examination in opposition proceedings following structural amendments to the claims. If a granted dependent claim is completely transferred into an…
Read more →Jun 1, 2026
In this decision, the Board of Appeal addresses the interpretation of patent claims, applying and interpreting the fundamental principles established by the Enlarged Board of Appeal in its decision G 1/24. Claim…
Read more →Jun 1, 2026
Proper claim construction is essential for a correct assessment of patent claims. A claim construction that disregards a technically meaningful claim feature is not a good-faith interpretation. Rather, the skilled…
Read more →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,…
Read more →Dec 10, 2025
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…
Read more →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…
Read more →Apr 12, 2023
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.…
Read more →Dec 29, 2020
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…
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