1. Sufficiency of disclosure 

A detailed description of at least one way of carrying out the invention must be given. Since the application is addressed to the skilled person, it is neither necessary nor desirable to give details of well-known ancillary features. However, the description must disclose any feature essential for carrying out the invention in sufficient detail to make it apparent to the skilled person how to put the invention into practice. A single example may suffice. But where the claims cover a broad field, the application is not usually regarded as satisfying the requirements of Art. 83 unless the description gives a number of examples or describes alternative embodiments or variations extending over the area protected by the claims. It is nevertheless important to bear in mind the facts and evidence of each particular case. There are some instances where even a very broad field is sufficiently exemplified by a limited number of examples or even one example (see also F‑IV, 6.3). In these cases, the application must contain, in addition to the examples, sufficient information to allow the skilled person, using common general knowledge, to perform the invention over the whole area claimed without undue burden and without needing inventive skill (see T 727/95). In this context, the "whole area claimed" is to be understood as substantially any embodiment falling within the scope of a claim, even though a limited amount of trial and error may be permissible, e.g. in an unexplored field or when there are many technical difficulties (see T 226/85 and T 409/91).

However, when assessing sufficiency of disclosure, the intrinsic limitations that a sensible reading imposes on the subject-matter of the independent claims must be taken into consideration; in other words the skilled person wishing to implement the claimed invention will exclude any embodiment that is meaningless and not consistent with the teaching of the application (see T 521/12).

With regard to Art. 83, an objection for lack of sufficient disclosure presupposes that there are serious doubts, substantiated by verifiable facts (see T 409/91 and T 694/92). If the examining division is able, under the particular circumstances, to establish, with supporting evidence, that the application lacks sufficient disclosure, the onus of establishing that the invention may be performed and repeated over substantially the whole of the claimed range lies with the applicant (see F‑III, 4).

For the requirements of Art. 83 and Rule 42(1)(c) and Rule 42(1)(e) to be fully satisfied, the invention must be described in terms not only of its structure but also of its function unless the functions of the various parts are immediately apparent. Indeed, in some technical fields (e.g. computers), a clear description of function may be much more appropriate than an over-detailed description of structure.

Where an application is found to be sufficiently disclosed under Art. 83 only in respect of a part of the claimed subject-matter, a partial European or supplementary European search report may be issued under Rule 63 (see B‑VIII, 3.1 and B-VIII, 3.2). In such cases, in the absence of appropriate amendment, an objection under Rule 63(3) will also be raised (see H‑II, 5 and H‑IV, 4.1.1).