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Decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the EPO G 03/14: “Examination of clarity objections”

In the decision G 03/14 the Enlarged Board of Appeal has for the first time taken an unequivocal position concerning the clarity requirement during opposition procedures. The decision confirms the known office practice that clarity objections remain unconsidered as long as only the maintenance of the patent in the granted version is involved. Hereby particularly the following circumstances are to be understood:

  • Pure cancellation of granted claims
  • Summarizing claims with cancellation of an alternative
  • Restricted cancellation of text with the maintenance of a possible lack of clarity
  • Cancellation of optional features.

Hence, for the examination of a possible lack of clarity only claim amendments remain by which single features are extracted from another claim or the description. However, in this case the examination requires that a lack of clarity arises for this amendment.

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