j) Amendment not adding anything of substance to the discussion of the objection raised 

In T 953/16 the appellant (applicant) submitted that the new auxiliary requests at issue were a legitimate response to a clarity objection raised by the board in its communication under Art. 15(1) RPBA 2020. The board noted, however, that although the amendments made to claim 1 in these requests constituted an attempt to clarify the claims, the inventive-step objections raised by it in its communication had already taken the features concerned into account in the interpretation of claim 1. It was therefore apparent to the board that the amendments did not add anything of substance to the discussion of inventive step and, therefore, they did not address all of the outstanding issues raised by it. In view of its negative conclusions on inventive step for the higher-ranking requests, the board saw no exceptional circumstance that could justify the admission of the new auxiliary requests into the appeal proceedings (Art. 13(2) RPBA 2020).