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
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