Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office - Patentit - Teollisuus - Tekniikka 2012-2013 (Erikoistyö)

摘要

Appeal procedure is an essential element of every legal system nowadays, because it ensures uniform interpretation of the law while giving a chance to appeal against unfavorable decisions. The appeal procedure is generally multi-staged and decisions of a lower instance can be appealed to a higher instance. The highest instance handles only the most important issues so the amount of handled cases is clearly smaller than in lower instances.European patents are granted according to the legal system defined in the European Patent Convention (EPC). As specified in the EPC, the first appeal stage is the Boards of Appeal which take care of all appeals requested by applicants. On the top of that, the Enlarged Board of Appeal gives their decision merely for the most fundamental questions regarding the EPC, such as if the case law of the Boards of Appeal is inconsistent or if the point of law in question is of significant importance.In general, patents are granted for technical inventions which are novel, inventive, and industrially applicable. In case of patent applications that claim priority from an earlier application, validity of priority rights is a notable issue. This report familiarizes the reader with the EPC and the appeal procedure under the EPC while providing a detailed study on the Enlarged Board of Appeal and its decisions regarding priority rights.