3. Clarté des revendications

In T 2387/22 claim 1 according to auxiliary requests 9 to 11 defined the use of a Vacuum Metallised Pigment (VMP) in a flexographic ink formulation for providing the following technical effects: "fewer print defects, higher hiding and stronger colour and allowing a lower volume anilox". The respondent (patent proprietor) submitted that according to G 2/88, when a use claim defined technical purposes or effects, these were to be interpreted as functional features restricting the scope of protection.

According to the appellant (opponent) these functional features did not meet the requirement of clarity under Art. 84 EPC, since they were defined using relative terms as well as diffusely defined concepts. The respondent replied that it was a well-established practice of the boards to allow the definition of effects or purposes in non-medical use claims using broad and/or relative terms.

The board observed that there was no basis – be it in the case law or in the EPC – for concluding that the limiting functional features of a use claim are exempt from the clarity requirement under Art. 84 EPC or somehow exposed to lower standards in this respect. It however emphasised that – irrespective of whether a claim was directed to a use or to any other category of subject-matter – the mere breadth of protection did not in itself imply a lack of clarity. The decisive consideration was whether the feature(s) in question gave(s) rise, or could plausibly give rise, to legal uncertainty when assessing whether a particular subject-matter falls within or outside the scope of protection conferred by the claim.

Moreover, the board stated that, where the invention was based on the discovery of a new technical effect of a known entity (as in G 2/88 and G 6/88), it was generally accepted in practice to define that effect in correspondingly broad terms, provided the effect was sufficiently distinct to clearly delimit the scope of protection with respect to the prior art. The situation in the present case was, however, fundamentally different. The use claim did not seek to define distinct technical effects, but rather relative improvements in the achievement of such effects..

The board held that where a claimed invention is defined by the use of a known entity to achieve a known technical effect or purpose, and the alleged technical contribution lies in a relative improvement or enhancement of that effect or purpose, the requirement of clarity under Art. 84 EPC generally demands that the feature defining such relative improvement or enhancement be expressed in objectively verifiable terms, thereby ensuring legal certainty regarding the scope of protection. In these "relative-improvement" scenarios, any imprecise functional language could blur the distinction between claimed and known uses, giving rise to the very legal uncertainty that the clarity requirement is intended to prevent.

In the present case, the board concluded that no objective criteria were available for determining when the number of print defects, the degree of hiding, the colour intensity or the anilox volume could be regarded as sufficiently low or high for other uses to fall within or outside the scope of the claim. As a result, the subject-matter of claim 1 could not be assessed objectively in relation to the prior art, which gave rise to legal uncertainty and therefore failed to meet the clarity requirement of Art. 84 EPC.

In T 417/24 claim 1 was directed to a content editing method performed by a terminal. The terminal displayed an editable user interface which displayed multimedia and doodle content. The editable user interface comprised a "content editing area" which was used to add or edit the content. The terminal displayed the added or edited content in the content editing area in response to an operation of adding or editing the content. When the terminal detected that the added content reached or exceeded a preset position in the content editing area, it automatically extended the "content editing area" by a preset size.

In the board's view, the skilled person reading claim 1 on its own, i.e. without consulting the description or drawings, understood that the "content editing area" was a specific area within the displayed editable user interface. In this area, the multimedia and doodle content was displayed, and by interacting with this area, the user could add or edit the content. With this interpretation, automatically extending the content editing area by a preset size meant extending the size of the area that the content editing area took up within the displayed user interface, for example by reducing the size of other parts of the user interface or by resizing the window in which the editable user interface was displayed.

However, from Figures 8A and 8B and their description, according to the board, the skilled person understood that, at least in one embodiment of the claimed invention, the "content editing area" was not a specific area of the displayed editable user interface within which the content was displayed and with which the user interacted to add and edit content but instead referred to the scrollable content of such an area.

The board concluded that, since the claims are to be interpreted in the light of the description and drawings (see T 2766/17, T 3097/19 and T 367/20), the scope of the term "content editing area", on its proper interpretation, encompassed the "content editing area" of the embodiment disclosed in Figures 8A and 8B and their description. It followed that the meaning of the term "content editing area" deviated substantially from the meaning which the skilled person would ascribe to it based solely on the wording of the claim alone. Claim 1 therefore failed to meet the requirement of Art. 84 EPC that, as far as possible, the meaning of the terms of the claims be clear from their wording alone (G 1/04, OJ 2006, 334, point 6.2 of the Reasons; T 3097/19).

The appellant (applicant) argued that there was no contradiction between the expression "the editable user interface comprises a content editing area" in claim 1 and the disclosure in Figures 8A and 8B and their description. The application disclosed that there could be an "extended content editing area" which comprised the "content editing area" and an extension area of the content editing area. In Figures 8A and 8B, the "content editing area" was not necessarily the full document being edited (or the "scrollable content", to use the board's wording) but could be one of several regions shown in these figures.

However, the board held that Figures 8A and 8B and their description left no doubt that the content editing area 801 was indeed the whole scrollable content shown in Figure 8B, only a portion of which was visible within the area 810 of the user interface shown in Figure 8A. The appellant's argument was therefore not convincing.

In T 602/24 merkte die Kammer an, dass dem Begriff "wesentliche Merkmale" in der Rechtsprechung keine einheitliche Bedeutung beigemessen wird. Dies liege nicht nur an der Anwendung unterschiedlicher Rechtsgrundlagen für ein solches Erfordernis (Deutlichkeit des Anspruchs oder Stützung durch die Beschreibung), sondern auch an den unterschiedlichen Kriterien, anhand derer das Fehlen "wesentlicher Merkmale" geprüft werde (s. RBK, 10. Aufl. 2022, II.A.3.2., II.A.5.1.). Die Kammer fügte hinzu, dass diese uneinheitliche Handhabung durch die Rechtsprechungsanalyse in T 56/21 im Zusammenhang mit der Frage, ob Art. 84 und R. 43 EPÜ eine Rechtsgrundlage für eine obligatorische Anpassung der Beschreibung an Ansprüche liefern, veranschaulicht wurde.

Die Kammer führte aus, dass in der Rechtsprechung Einigkeit darüber besteht, dass die Prüfung der "wesentlichen Merkmale" angesichts des Erfordernisses, dass die Ansprüche durch die Beschreibung gestützt sein müssen, einen formalen Aspekt beinhaltet, insoweit als zu prüfen ist, ob das, was in den Ansprüchen definiert ist, auch in der Beschreibung zu finden ist. Darüber hinaus würden aber in vielen der im Abschnitt II.A.5.1 der Publikation RBK zitierten Entscheidungen bei der Prüfung dieses Erfordernisses materiellrechtliche Aspekte berücksichtigt. Die Prüfung dieser weiteren Aspekte gehe teilweise auf die Entscheidung T 409/91 zurück (Nr. 2 und 3.5 der Gründe). In diesem Zusammenhang verwies die Kammer desweiteren auf T 939/92 und T 1055/92 sowie auf die Entscheidungen im dritten Absatz des Teils II.A.5.1 der RBK.

Die Kammer stellte fest, dass im vorliegenden Fall die Zurückweisung des Hauptanspruchs durch die Prüfungsabteilung wegen fehlender wesentlicher Merkmale unter Bezugnahme auf Art. 84 EPÜ nicht auf einer fehlenden formalen Stütze des Anspruchs 1 durch die Beschreibung, sondern offensichtlich auf einer unzureichenden Offenbarung seines Gegenstands im Sinne des Art. 83 EPÜ beruhte. Ein solcher Einwand auf der Grundlage von Art. 84 EPÜ sei aber für die Kammer im Lichte des Zwecks der R. 43 EPÜ nicht haltbar. Außerdem sei eine solche Zurückweisung nicht im Einklang mit den "Travaux préparatoires" zum EPÜ 1973 und zum EPÜ 2000, wie aus T 1020/03 und G 3/14 hervorgehe.

Unter Berücksichtigung des Titels der R. 43 EPÜ, wonach diese die Form und den Inhalt der Patentansprüche festlegt, sowie der formalen Anforderungen für Ansprüche in R. 43 (1) bis (2) und (4) bis (7) EPÜ war der Kammer nicht ersichtlich, warum der Wortlaut des ersten Teils der R. 43 (3) EPÜ, wonach die unabhängigen Patentansprüche die wesentlichen Merkmale der Erfindung wiedergeben, im Gegensatz zu allen anderen Bestimmungen der R. 43 EPÜ Erfordernisse definieren sollte, die über die Form und den Inhalt der Ansprüche hinausgehen.

Da außerdem die Patentansprüche nach Art. 84 EPÜ den Gegenstand des Schutzbegehrens definieren ("the matter for which protection is sought"; "l'objet de la demande pour lequel la protection est recherchée"), d.h. den vom Anmelder formulierten Gegenstand, für den ein europäisches Patent beantragt wird, müssen der Kammer zufolge die wesentlichen Merkmale der Erfindung im Sinne von R. 43 (3) EPÜ diejenigen sein, die der Anmelder als wesentlich für den beantragten Patentschutz ansieht, und nicht diejenigen, die die Prüfungsabteilung als ausreichend erachtet, um materiellrechtliche Erfordernisse zu erfüllen.

Die Kammer kam daher zu dem Schluss, dass die Zurückweisung durch die Prüfungsabteilung unter Bezugnahme auf Art. 84 EPÜ mit der Begründung, dass Anspruch 1 nicht alle wesentliche Merkmale in Bezug auf das Erreichen einer Glasübergangstemperatur (Tg) von mehr als 60°C für die vernetzte Zusammensetzung enthielt, nicht überzeugend war.