Intellectual Property Advisory: Divisional Applications at the European Patent Office
9/28/2006
The examination of certain European divisional patent applications is currently suspended at the European Patent Office (EPO). When a divisional application is considered to contain subject matter that extends beyond the content of the earlier application, the examination of the application is likely to be put on hold, because the question whether this defect can be corrected by deleting the additional subject matter is presently under review by the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The examination of such cases will only resume after the Enlarged Board of Appeal issue their opinion.
For what this means in practice and further details please see this Mintz Levin publication.
