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Guidelines for Examination

 
 
Table of Contents - Guidelines for Examination
Part H Amendments and Corrections
Chapter IV – Allowability of amendments - Art. 123(2) and Art. 123(3)
3. Allowability of amendments under Art. 123(3)
3.5 Assessment of impermissible extension of the protection conferred
3.5
Assessment of impermissible extension of the protection conferred 

In view of the above considerations, all amendments made to claims and any connected amendments to the description and drawings in the course of opposition proceedings, such as a change in the technical features of the invention, must be examined to determine whether such amendments could result in the extension of the subject-matter beyond the content of the application as originally filed (Art. 123(2)) or in the extension of the protection conferred (Art. 123(3)).

If, in view of Art. 84 , the application documents have been adapted to amended claims before grant, thereby deleting part of the subject-matter originally disclosed in order to avoid inconsistencies in the patent specification, as a rule, subject-matter deleted for this reason cannot be reinserted either into the patent specification or into the claims as granted without infringing Art. 123(3) (the cut-off effect). An analogous finding applies to subject-matter retained in the patent specification during such adaptation for reasons of comprehensibility, but indicated as not relating to the claimed invention (see T 1149/97).

Special attention should be paid to the requirements of Art. 123(2) and (3), which have to be dealt with separately:

(a)
Examination for compliance with Art. 123(2) is conducted in the same way as in examination proceedings.
(b)
Examination for compliance with Art. 123(3), on the other hand, is based on the claims as granted, or as amended in opposition or earlier limitation proceedings, where necessary using the description and drawings to interpret the claims (Art. 69 and the Protocol on the Interpretation of Art. 69).