1.14.3 Adding prior art citations to the description – removing the wrong label "prior art"

For cases concerning the addition of prior art citations to the description, see above in this chapter II.E.1.11.5.

In T 1039/93 certain figures of the application as filed had been erroneously labelled as prior art while in fact representing in-house technical knowledge of the appellant that had not been made available to the public. The board did not object to the deletion of the labels "prior art" from the relevant figures since such deletion neither infringed Art. 123(2) EPC 1973 nor affected the disclosure of the state of the art; on the contrary such amendment was necessary to avoid giving an inaccurate representation of the state of the art. After the amendment the description correctly indicated the prior art as required by R. 27(1)(b) EPC 1973.