The Supreme Court held that the US doctrine of file wrapper estoppel is not applicable under the EPC. According to the Court only Article 69 of the EPC and the Protocol on its interpretation should be applied when determining the scope of a claim. The modifications of the patent application during prosecution cannot be taken into account as such. The Court also took this opportunity to confirm that the doctrine of equivalents cannot apply when the particular claimed means is already known.
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A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
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