Declaration of the European Patent Office with regard to Patent No. EP 0695351 granted on 8 December 1999

The wording of claim No. 48 in the three official languages is as follows:

"Verfahren zur Herstellung eines transgenen Tieres ..."
"Procédé de préparation d'un animal transgénique .."
"A method of preparing a transgenic animal ..."

The English wording of the claim should have included the qualification "(non-human)" because in English scientific usage the term "animal" also includes "human".

The European Patent Office has already admitted this error and regrets that it has occurred. The Office will take every care to prevent such errors recurring in the future.
Contrary to many accounts, and despite the omission of the qualifier "(non-human)", the scope of protection of Patent No. EP 0695351 does not extend to human cloning. That is because under Articles 69 and 84 of the European Patent Convention the patent claims must be supported by the patent description. This is not the case here.
The EPO is not able on its own initiative to amend a granted patent containing an error. However, under the European Patent Convention, anyone may challenge the patent by filing an opposition within nine months from grant. That is likely to happen in the present case. This procedure thus allows any necessary corrections to be made.

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