T 1437/10 - Pri, pri, priority
This case concerns an appeal against a decision of the Examining Division to refuse European Patent Application 99943715.5. In its decision, the Examining Division reasoned that the right to priority of the present application was invalid and that, as a consequence, the subject-matter of the main and auxiliary request was not novel over the disclosure of document D1, being published within the priority period.
Of interest is that the priority document is a US provisional application which was filed without claims. At issue in the present appeal is whether the description of the priority document provides a right of priority for the present - relatively broad - independent claim, and in particular, whether later sections of the priority document, which provide various details, limit the general concept described in an earlier section of the priority document.
Summary of Facts and Submissions
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IV. Oral proceedings before the board were held on 12 February 2015.
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IX. The appellant essentially argued as follows:
The priority document was disclosing at least two inventions. The first one being the general design rule for an interleaver of any size N as disclosed in section 2 of the priority document. Other inventions were to be seen in the sections dealing with the details and with the optimisation of the general design rule as disclosed in section 4 and 5 of the priority document, respectively. In section 2 of the priority document, it was explicitly stated that sections 4 and 5 merely were disclosing the details and the optimisation of the broader invention of section 2. Thus, a separate right to priority was existing for the general interleaver design rule of section 2 of the priority document. Hence, claim 1 according to the main request was entitled to the right of priority.
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