Patent claims are allowed to be speculative to a certain extent

Claims in patent applications typically involve generalisations which inherently include an aspect of speculation. Patent applications in the field of medicine represent in this respect no exception. The approaches developed in the jurisprudence of the Boards of Appeal of the EPO for the assessment of sufficiency of disclosure and inventive step specifically take account of the technical contribution actually disclosed in a patent application to avoid patent protection resulting from unreasonable speculation on the basis of propositions that are prima facie implausible (EPO BoA 23 February 2021, T 2015/20, Aclidinium for treatment of asthma/ALMIRALL).