1.3.9 Anspruchsauslegung bei der Beurteilung der Einhaltung von Artikel 123 (2) EPÜ

Catchword:

To assess whether an amended patent claim contains added subject-matter under Article 123(2) EPC, the claimed subject-matter must first be determined by interpreting the claim from the perspective of the person skilled in the art. In a second step, it must be assessed whether that subject-matter is disclosed in the application as filed (Reasons 1.3.8 to 1.3.10).

Catchword: 

1.) Article 69 EPC in conjunction with Article 1 of the Protocol thereto can and should be relied on when interpreting claims and determining the claimed subject-matter in proceedings before the EPO, including for the purpose of assessing compliance with Article 123(2) EPC (Reasons 3.1-3.15).  2.) Although Article 69(1), second sentence, EPC requires that generally account be taken of the description and the drawings when interpreting a claim, the primacy of the claims according to Article 69(1), first sentence, EPC limits the extent to which the meaning of a certain claim feature may be affected by the description and the drawings (Reasons 3.16-3.16.2).  3.) Claim interpretation is overall a question of law which must as such ultimately be answered by the deciding body, and not by linguistic or technical experts. It does, however, involve the appraisal of linguistic and technical facts which may be supported by evidence submitted by the parties (Reasons 3.17).