The European Patent Convention (EPC), also known as the Convention on the Grant of European Patents of 5 October 1973, is a multilateral treaty instituting the European Patent Organisation and providing an autonomous legal system according to which European patents are granted. The term European patent is used to refer to patents granted under the European Patent Convention. However, a European patent is not a unitary right, but a group of essentially independent nationally enforceable, nationally revocable patents, subject to central revocation or narrowing as a group pursuant to two types of unified, post-grant procedures: a time-limited opposition procedure, which can be initiated by any person except the patent proprietor, and limitation and revocation procedures, which can be initiated by the patent proprietor only.
The European Patent Convention (EPC), the multilateral treaty instituting the legal system according to which European patents are granted, contains provisions allowing a party to appeal a decision issued by a first instance department of the European Patent Office (EPO). For instance, a decision of an Examining Division refusing to grant a European patent application may be appealed by the applicant. The appeal procedure before the European Patent Office is under the responsibility of its Boards of Appeal, which are institutionally independent within the EPO.
The opposition procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is a post-grant, contentious, inter partes, administrative procedure intended to allow any European patent to be centrally opposed. European patents granted by the EPO under the European Patent Convention (EPC) may be opposed by any person from the public. This happens often when some prior art was not found during the grant procedure, but was only known by third parties.
A reformatio in peius occurs in law when as the result of an appeal, the appellant is put in a worse position than if there had been no appeal. For example, an appellant in a criminal case might receive a more severe sentence on appeal than in their original trial.
G 1/03 and G 2/03 are two decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), which were both issued on April 8, 2004.
The grant procedure before the European Patent Office (EPO) is an ex parte, administrative procedure, which includes the filing of a European patent application, the examination of formalities, the establishment of a search report, the publication of the application, its substantive examination, and the grant of a patent, or the refusal of the application, in accordance with the legal provisions of the European Patent Convention (EPC). The grant procedure is carried out by the EPO under the supervision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation. The patents granted in accordance with the EPC are called European patents.
In European patent law, the limitation and revocation procedures before the European Patent Office (EPO) are post-grant, ex parte, administrative procedures allowing any European patent to be centrally limited by an amendment of the claims or revoked, respectively. These two procedures were introduced in the recently revised text of the European Patent Convention (EPC), i.e. the so-called EPC 2000, which entered into force on 13 December 2007.
Article 84 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) specifies that the "matter" for which patent protection is sought in an application - the purported invention - shall be stated ("defined") in the claims. This legal provision also requires that the claims must be clear and concise, and supported by the description. The function, form and content of the claims are defined by Article 84 supplemented by Rule 43 EPC.
Article 123 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) relates to the amendments under the EPC, i.e. the amendments to a European patent application or patent, and notably the conditions under which they are allowable. In particular, Article 123(2) EPC prohibits adding subject-matter beyond the content of the application as filed, while Article 123(3) EPC prohibits an extension of the scope of protection by amendment after grant.
Article 83 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) relates to the disclosure of the invention under the European Patent Convention. This legal provision prescribes that a European patent application must disclose the invention in a manner sufficiently clear and complete for it to be carried out by a person skilled in the art.
Under the European Patent Convention (EPC), European patents shall be granted for inventions which inter alia involve an inventive step. The central legal provision explaining what this means, i.e. the central legal provision relating to the inventive step under the EPC, is Article 56 EPC. That is, an invention, having regard to the state of the art, must not be obvious to a person skilled in the art. The Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) have developed an approach, called the "problem-and-solution approach", to assess whether an invention involves an inventive step.
The fees due at the European Patent Office (EPO) in relation to a European patent application are laid out in the Rules relating to Fees of 20 October 1977, as adopted by decision of the Administrative Council of the European Patent Organisation of 7 December 2006 and as last amended by decision of the Administrative Council of 12 December 2018.
Under the European Patent Convention (EPC), any third party –i.e., essentially any person– may file observations on the patentability of an invention which is the subject of a European patent application or, after grant, subject of a European patent, especially to draw the attention of the European Patent Office (EPO) to some relevant prior art documents. This is a form of public participation in the examination of patent applications.
G 1/19 is a decision issued by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) on 10 March 2021, which deals with the patentability of computer-implemented simulations.
G 1/21 is a decision issued on 16 July 2021 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO) regarding the legality of holding oral proceedings at the EPO by videoconference without the consent of the parties. Namely, the Enlarged Board of Appeal held that "[d]uring a general emergency impairing the parties' possibilities to attend in-person oral proceedings at the EPO premises, the conduct of oral proceedings before the boards of appeal in the form of a videoconference is compatible with the EPC even if not all of the parties to the proceedings have given their consent to the conduct of oral proceedings in the form of a videoconference." The reasoning in the written decision further indicates that, if a party so requests, oral proceedings must be held in person at the EPO premises, except in absolutely exceptional cases.
G 1/10 is a decision issued on 23 July 2012 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), holding that Rule 140 EPC cannot be used to request corrections of the text of a European patent.
G 1/11 is a decision issued on 19 March 2014 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), holding that a Technical Board of Appeal rather than the Legal Board of Appeal is competent for an appeal against a decision of an Examining Division refusing a request for refund of a search fee under Rule 64(2) EPC, which has not been taken together with a decision granting a European patent or refusing a European patent application. In other words, the decision deals with the delimitation of competence between the EPO's Legal Board of Appeal and its Technical Boards of Appeal.
G 1/12 is a decision issued on 30 April 2014 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), holding that an appellant's identity in a notice of appeal can be corrected under Rule 101(2) EPC, provided the requirements of Rule 101(1) EPC are met. The Enlarged Board of Appeal also held that an appellant's identity can be corrected under Rule 139 EPC, first sentence, under the conditions established by the case law of the Boards of Appeal.
G 1/09 is a decision issued on 27 September 2010 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO), holding that, following refusal of a European patent application, the application remains pending until the expiry of the time limit for filing a notice of appeal, so that a divisional application under Article 76 EPC may be filed even after the refusal of an application. More specifically, the divisional application may be filed until expiry of the time limit of two months for filing a notice of appeal under Article 108 EPC.
G 2/93 is a decision issued on 21 December 1994 by the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office (EPO). The decision deals with deposits of biological material. More specifically, the decision deals with the time limit for the deposit of such material. The current provision in Rule 32(2)(a) EPC provides for a time limit of sixteen months from the date of filing or from the date of priority, whichever expires earlier.
