The European Patent Office (EPO)'s requirement for the description of a patent to confirm the claims at the final stage of grant or opposition proceedings is coming under attack, as Jakob Pade Frederiksen of Inspicos explains
A peculiarity of EPO practice is that the description is usually required to be brought into conformity with the claims at the final stage of grant or opposition proceedings.
According to the EPO Guidelines, part F-IV 4.3: "Any inconsistency between the description and the claims must be avoided if it could throw doubt on the subject-matter for which protection is sought."
If the description includes embodiment not covered by the scope of the claims, amendment of the description is required by deleting those embodiments or marking them as not falling within the scope of the claims. Read more