Unity of invention under the European Patent Convention

rdf:langString Unity of invention under the European Patent Convention

rdf:langString 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 also applies also in other jurisdictions. The lack of unity 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 taking 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.