A. Claims
Overview
A. Claims
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1.Basic principles
2.Form, content and conciseness of claims
3.Clarity of claims
5.Claims supported by the description
6.Interpretation of claims
7.Product-by-process claims
8.Claims fees
- T 1360/13
In view of Article 69(1) EPC which states that the description and the drawings shall be used to interpret the claims when determining the extent of the protection conferred by a European patent, after grant, any information in the description and/or drawings of a patent directly related to a feature of a claim and potentially restricting its interpretation cannot be removed from the patent without infringing Article 123(3) EPC.
- G 2/19
1. Ein Dritter im Sinne von Artikel 115 EPÜ, der gegen die Entscheidung über die Erteilung eines europäischen Patents Beschwerde eingelegt hat, hat keinen Anspruch darauf, dass vor einer Beschwerdekammer des Europäischen Patentamtes mündlich über sein Begehren verhandelt wird, zur Beseitigung vermeintlich undeutlicher Patentansprüche (Artikel 84 EPÜ) des europäischen Patents den erneuten Eintritt in das Prüfungsverfahren anzuordnen. Eine solchermaßen eingelegte Beschwerde entfaltet keine aufschiebende Wirkung.
2. Mündliche Verhandlungen der Beschwerdekammern an deren Standort in Haar verstoßen nicht gegen die Artikel 113 (1) und 116 (1) EPÜ.
- Case law 2021
- Case law 2020
ABl. EPA 2021, Zusatzpublikation 2
OJ EPO 2021, Supplementary publication 2
JO OEB 2021, Publication supplémentaire 2- Case law 2019
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In T 1409/16 the board considered that both "exclusive disjunctions" and "inclusive disjunctions" could be expressed by the "either (...) or" wording. The fact that another expression ("and/or") was used (in the sense of an inclusive "or") in another claim of the contested patent was not, as such, a compelling reason for concluding that the "either (...) or" wording used in the claim in question must have a different meaning, i.e. that it expressed an exclusive "or". There was no absolute obligation to use a fully coherent terminology for expressing given features if the latter could be expressed in different ways. The board held that the "either (...) or" wording could only be considered as expressing an exclusive "or" in cases where the two situations referred to were, due to their very nature, mutually exclusive, i.e. incompatible with each other. See also chapter I.B.2.1. "Public prior use – internal structure or composition of a product".