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Guidelines for Examination in the EPO

Guidelines for Examination - Table of Contents  
PART C GUIDELINES FOR SUBSTANTIVE EXAMINATION PART B PART D  
CHAPTER II CONTENT OF A EUROPEAN PATENT APPLICATION (OTHER THAN CLAIMS) CHAPTER I INTRODUCTION CHAPTER III CLAIMS  
4. Description 3. Request for grant the title 5. Drawings  
4.10 Art. 83 vs. Art. 123(2) 4.9 Sufficiency of disclosure 4.11 Insufficient disclosure  

4.10

Art. 83 vs. Art. 123(2)

 

It is the responsibility of the applicant to ensure that he supplies, on filing his application, a sufficient disclosure, i.e. one that meets the requirements of Art. 83 in respect of the invention as claimed in all of the claims. If the claims define the invention, or a feature thereof, in terms of parameters (see III, 4.11), the application as filed must include a clear description of the methods used to determine the parameter values, unless a person skilled in the art would know what method to use or unless all methods would yield the same result (see III, 4.18). If the disclosure is seriously insufficient, such a deficiency cannot be cured subsequently by adding further examples or features without offending against Art. 123(2), which requires that amendments may not result in the introduction of subject-matter which extends beyond the content of the application as filed (see VI, 5.3). Therefore, in such circumstances, the application must normally be refused. If, however, the deficiency arises only in respect of some embodiments of the invention and not others, it could be remedied by restricting the claims to correspond to the sufficiently described embodiments only, the description of the remaining embodiments being deleted.

Art. 83

Art. 123(2)




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