3.2.1 Independent "parent" claim includes all features of the "divisional" claim with an additional feature

In T 587/98 (OJ 2000, 497) the examining division, relying on the Guidelines prohibiting "conflicting" claims, had refused a European patent application, filed as a divisional application, on the grounds that its subject-matter overlapped with that of the parent application and that in the overlapping region the same subject-matter was claimed; as legal basis for the refusal it invoked Art. 125 EPC. The board found that there was no express or implicit provision in the EPC prohibiting the presence in a divisional application of an independent claim related to an independent claim in the parent application (or patent, if it had already been granted) in such a way that the "parent" claim included all the features of the "divisional" claim combined with an additional feature.