Unity of Invention Under The European Patent Convention

Unity Of Invention Under The European Patent Convention

Under Article 82 EPC, a European patent application must "relate to one invention only or to a group of inventions so linked as to form a single general inventive concept". This legal provision is the application, within the European Patent Convention, of the requirement of unity of invention which is applicable also in many other jurisdictions.

The lack of unity (of invention), or non unity (of invention), can appear either "a priori", i.e. before taking into account the prior art, or "a posteriori", i.e. after having taken into account the prior art. An a posteriori lack of unity usually results from a lack of novelty or inventive step of the subject-matter of one independent claim.

Read more about Unity Of Invention Under The European Patent Convention:  Unity Amongst A Group of Inventions, Search Phase, Interactions Between Search and Examination Phases, Examination Phase

Famous quotes containing the words unity of, unity, invention, european, patent and/or convention:

    The unity of effect or impression is a point of the greatest importance. It is clear, moreover, that this unity cannot be thoroughly preserved in productions whose perusal cannot be completed at one sitting.
    Edgar Allan Poe (1809–1849)

    Certainly for us of the modern world, with its conflicting claims, its entangled interests, distracted by so many sorrows, so many preoccupations, so bewildering an experience, the problem of unity with ourselves in blitheness and repose, is far harder than it was for the Greek within the simple terms of antique life. Yet, not less than ever, the intellect demands completeness, centrality.
    Walter Pater (1839–1894)

    “Art” is an invention of aesthetics, which in turn is an invention of philosophers.... What we call art is a game.
    Octavio Paz (b. 1914)

    No European spring had shown him the same intermixture of delicate grace and passionate depravity that marked the Maryland May.
    Henry Brooks Adams (1838–1918)

    This is the patent age of new inventions
    For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
    All propagated with the best intentions.
    George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)

    Every one knows about the young man who falls in love with the chorus-girl because she can kick his hat off, and his sister’s friends can’t or won’t. But the youth who marries her, expecting that all her departures from convention will be as agile or as delightful to him as that, is still the classic example of folly.
    Katharine Fullerton Gerould (1879–1944)