9. Errors in prior-art documents 

Prior-art documents may contain errors.

When a potential error is detected, three situations may arise depending on whether the skilled person, using general knowledge:

(i)can directly and unambiguously derive from the prior-art document that it contains an error and what the only possible correction should be 

(ii)can directly and unambiguously derive from the prior-art document that it contains an error, but can identify more than one possible correction 

(iii)cannot directly and unambiguously derive from the prior-art document that it contains an error. 

When assessing the relevance of a document for patentability:

in case (i), the disclosure is considered to contain the correction

in case (ii), the disclosure of the passage containing the error is disregarded

in case (iii), the literal disclosure is taken into account as is.

For possible errors concerning compound records in online databases, see B‑VI, 6.5. For non-enabling disclosures, see G‑IV, 2.