2. Artikel 123 (3) EPÜ – Erweiterung des Schutzbereichs
Übersicht
2. Artikel 123 (3) EPÜ – Erweiterung des Schutzbereichs
Gemäß Art. 123 (3) EPÜ darf das europäische Patent nicht in der Weise geändert werden, dass sein Schutzbereich erweitert wird. Hier ist das Patent in seiner Gesamtheit gemeint.
Der Wortlaut des Art. 123 (3) EPÜ 1973 hatte sich nur auf die Patentansprüche bezogen; allerdings hatten die Kammern bereits nach dem EPÜ 1973 geurteilt, dass Änderungen in der Beschreibung und den Zeichnungen den Schutzbereich nach Art. 123 (3) EPÜ 1973 erweitern könnten (s. G 2/88, Nr. 4 der Gründe; G 1/93, Nr. 11 der Gründe; T 1149/97, ABl. 2000, 259; und T 142/05). In T 953/22 erklärte die Kammer, dass aus diesem Grund die in der Rechtsprechung zu Art. 123 (3) EPÜ 1973 diskutierten Grundsätze auch auf Art. 123 (3) EPÜ zutreffen. Insbesondere stellte die Kammer in T 142/05 fest, dass Änderungen in der Beschreibung und den Zeichnungen den Inhalt der Ansprüche verändern und gegebenenfalls den Schutzbereich nach Art. 69 (1) EPÜ 1973 auch dann erweitern könnten, auch wenn der Wortlaut der Ansprüche klar sei und unverändert bliebe.
Artikel 123 (2) EPÜ und Art. 123 (3) EPÜ sind voneinander unabhängig (G 1/93; ABl. 1994, 541); dasselbe gilt für Art. 76 (1) EPÜ und Art. 123 (3) EPÜ (T 1736/09).
- T 0439/22
In T 439/22 of 11 December 2025 the board applied the conclusions of the Enlarged Board in G 1/24 to interpret the term "gathered sheet" in claim 1 of the referring case.
The board held that in interpreting the language used in a claim, "consulting", "referring to", "using" and "taking into account" the description and figures are synonyms for the act of deriving the necessary information from the patent as a whole to understand which meaning a person skilled in the art would attribute to the terms used in the claim.
Furthermore, the board stated that claim interpretation was the result of both reading the claims and consulting the description and drawings as a unitary process. It explained that this holistic approach followed from the Order of the Enlarged Board, according to which, if, on the one hand the claims are the starting point and the basis for assessing the patentability of an invention under Art. 52 to 57 EPC, the interpretation of the claims requires, on the other hand, that "the description and drawings shall always be consulted when assessing the patentability of an invention under Art. 52 to 57 EPC". Moreover, this was confirmed in point 17 of G 1/24, which provides that "the finding that the language of a claim is clear and unambiguous is an act of interpretation, not a preliminary stage to such an interpretative act"..
The board was of the view that a skilled person aiming to correctly determine the subject-matter for which protection was sought and reading the patent specification with a mind willing to understand would attribute considerable weight to any definition of a term used in the claims. Having cross-checked that the claim in itself and in the context of the other claims made technical sense and was in line with the information presented in other passages of the description, the person skilled in the art would have no reason to disregard such definitions and to give the defined terms a different meaning in the claim. In the case in hand the definition of "gathered" given in paragraph [0035] did not contradict but rather encompassed the commonly accepted meaning of the term "gathered sheet", namely a sheet that is folded and convoluted to occupy a three-dimensional space. The definition was simply not restricted to folded sheets but included other forms of transverse constrictions of the extension of a sheet. The board concluded that the wound tobacco sheet of D1 equated to the "gathered sheet" feature of claim 1 when this term was correctly interpreted according to paragraph [0035] of the description. Hence, the subject-matter of claim 1 of the main request lacked novelty over the content of document D1.
The sole amendment in the auxiliary request was the deletion of paragraph [0035] from the description of the contested patent, which read as follows: "As used herein, the term 'gathered' denotes that the sheet of tobacco material is convoluted, folded, or otherwise compressed or constricted substantially transversely to the cylindrical axis of the rod". The appellant submitted that said deletion altered the interpretation of the term "gathered sheet" in claim 1 and, consequently, the scope of the protection conferred. In the absence of the broader definition provided in paragraph [0035], the term "gathered sheet" no longer encompassed other limiting features, namely that the gathered tobacco sheet was "compressed or constricted substantially transversely to the cylindrical axis of the rod".
The board noted that, in line with the Enlarged Board's holistic approach to claim interpretation in G 1/24, a person skilled in the art reading the claim in the context of the description and figures would try to take a definition found in the description at face value. As long as the definition was technically reasonable and complied with the overall teaching expressed in the claims, description and figures, the skilled person would read the terms in the claim in the sense of the definition, taking into account both the broadening and limiting aspects found in that definition. It was therefore not permissible to consider only the broadening aspects contained in a definition and disregard any limiting aspects. As set out by the Enlarged Board in G 1/24, point 20 of the Reasons, Art. 84 EPC may require that limiting or broadening aspects are expressed in the claim to avoid any unclarity, but a granted claim had to be read in light of all aspects of a definition found in the description. Therefore, the board concluded that the auxiliary request did not comply with the requirement of Art. 123(3) EPC.