a) Principle

In T 201/83 (OJ 1984, 481) the board came to the conclusion that the amendment of the concentration range for a claimed mixture, such as an alloy, was admissible on the basis of a value described in a specific example, provided that the skilled person could have readily recognised that this value was not so closely associated with the other features of the example as to determine the effect of that embodiment of the invention as a whole in a unique manner and to a significant degree. In the case at issue, the new limit could be deduced from the original documents.

As pointed out in T 1556/16, limiting an originally disclosed broader range using an isolated value taken from an example may be allowed, if it does not present the skilled person with information that goes beyond the content of the original disclosure. In the case in hand, after a detailed analysis of the application's disclosure, as understood by the skilled person, the board held that the skilled person was not presented, by the particular selection, with new information.