Abstract
Dr. Thomas Leber is Examiner at the European Patent Office (Munich, Germany) in the field of biotechnology. The present article is based on personal considerations by the author and does not necessarily reflect the official position of the European Patent Office on this subject. Assessment of novelty of a claim referring to a numerical range that falls within a broader numerical range disclosed in the prior art has been the topic of numerous decisions by the Boards of Appeal. This case law led to the formulation of the “narrow”, “sufficiently far removed” and “purposive selection” criteria to be applied in this context. The author has reviewed this case law to determine whether and to what extent these criteria can be derived from the European Patent Convention (EPC). The author puts forward the hypothesis that these criteria may possibly have no clear basis in the EPC.
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