SONN Patentanwälte – IP Attorneys

EPO Case law: No categorical prohibition of double patenting

Art 125 EPC: It does not seem to be categorically ruled out that there may be a situation in which an applicant has a legitimate interest in the grant of a second patent with the same effective date for the same claimed subject-matter if he already possesses one such granted patent. This would also not contradict the obiter dicta of the EBoA in G 1/05 and G 1/06, since the main issue there was the fundamental recognition of the prohibition of double patenting as well as the statement that this principle could not be used to prevent the filing of identical divisional applications (EPO BoA 5 September 2017, T 2563/11, Doppelpatentierung).