Key points
- The patentee does not adapt the description to the amended claims and invokes T1989/18.
- The Board follows established case law that the description must be adapted to the amended claims.
- The Board, in translation: "The requirement that the claims be supported by the description basically means that subject-matter may be claimed in the claims which has a basis in the description. This is to ensure that the claims contain only what is deemed to be disclosed, present and accessible to a person skilled in the art after reading the description (see T 409/91 [])"
- This seems similar to Art. 123(2).
- "The requirement that claims must be based on the description thus ensures that the claims reflect the actual contribution to the state of the art in a manner that can be carried out by a person skilled in the art over the whole area they cover (see T 659/93 []".
- This seems similar to Art. 83 EPC.
- "It follows that claims and description, as parts of a single document, must match. Although they may contain different information in accordance with their different function, as follows from the EPC, they must not contradict each other."
- "In the light of these principles, the case law of the Board of Appeal has become established that Article 84 EPC is the basis for adapting the description to amended claims in order to avoid inconsistencies which might render the scope of the claims unclear []. The adaptation of the description must be carried out as required by legal certainty. If contradictions arise due to limitations of the claims, these are to be corrected by adapting the description in such a way that all information is removed that no longer explains the limited subject matter of the patent and that is not necessary or useful for understanding the invention.
EPO T 2293/18 -
The link to the decision is provided after the jump, as well as (an extract of) the text of the decision.
source http://justpatentlaw.blogspot.com/2022/05/t-229318-support-in-description.html
