Amendments to a patent (application) are bound to strict rules under the European Patent Convention (EPC). According to Art. 123(2) of the EPC, a European patent (application) may not be amended in such a way that it contains subject-matter which extends beyond the content of the application as filed. Adding subject-matter which is not disclosed would give an applicant an unwarranted advantage and could be damaging to the legal security of third parties. (G 1/93, OJ 1994, 541) The ‘gold standard’ of the European Patent Office’s Board of Appeal is that any amendment can only be made within the limits of what a skilled person would derive directly and unambiguously, using common general knowledge, and seen objectively and relative to the date of filing, from the whole of the documents as filed (G 3/89, OJ 1993,117; G 11/91, OJ 1993, 125).
The Federal Court of Justice ruled that the subject matter of a patent does not extend beyond the content of the application as filed when terms are used in the claims that are not literally used in the application text but are summarizing words for longer descriptions in the application as filed. A full summary…
The Dutch Supreme Court stated that the patentee still has an interest in this supreme appeal proceeding after amendment of the patent pursuant to Articles 105a-c EPC 2000 subsequent to coming into force of EPC 2000 and the Appeals Court’s decision to nullify the patent. Although the Appeals Court in subsequent proceedings should take the…
In this case the Court holds that documents and explanations relating to a patent application should be corrected or changed at the request of the Polish Patent Office within a fixed time period and under penalty of discontinuation of the proceedings. A faulty application and non-compliance with such requests may result in the refusal to…
