4.4 General statements, "spirit of the invention", claim-like clauses 

General statements in the description which imply that the extent of protection may be expanded in some vague and not precisely defined way are not allowed. In particular, any statement which refers to the extent of protection being expanded to cover the "spirit of the invention" or "all equivalents" of the claims must be deleted.

Statements that refer to the extent of protection covering the "scope of the claims" or the invention being "defined in the claims" are allowed. This does not preclude the removal of inconsistencies (F‑IV, 4.3).

Analogously, in the case where the claims are directed to a combination of features, any statement that seems to imply that protection is nevertheless sought not only for the combination as a whole but also for individual features or sub-combinations thereof must be deleted.

Finally, claim-like clauses must also be deleted or amended to avoid claim-like language prior to grant since they otherwise may lead to unclarity on the subject-matter for which protection is sought.

"Claim-like" clauses are clauses present in the description which despite not being identified as a claim, appear as such and usually comprise an independent clause followed by a number of clauses referring to previous clauses. These claim-like clauses are usually found at the end of the description and/or in the form of numbered paragraphs, particularly in divisional or Euro-PCT applications, where the original set of claims from the parent or PCT application is appended to the description.