T 0690/13 - Support and basis

Key points

• The Board rejects a Second auxiliary request under Article 84 EPC as lacking support by the description because "there was a contradiction between the wording of claim 1 and the disclosure in figure 3 [invoked as support] and the associated description".
• I wonder whether the request was not rejected as lacking basis under Article 123(2) EPC.

T 0690/13


Reasons for the Decision
[] Second auxiliary request - Article 84 EPC 1973

14. Claim 1 of the second auxiliary request differs from claim 1 of the main request by the features underlined in section XII supra, in particular by the feature that "the pupil location means includes masking means for providing an output from which the influence of the reference spot and additional spots has been removed prior to selection of those parts of the gradient of said image portion in the pupil tracking window which have a gradient greater than the threshold value" (emphasis added by the board).

15. The appellant submitted the above feature was supported by figure 3 and the associated description of the application as filed.

16. The board, however, notes that according to figure 3 and the last four lines on page 7 of the description, the masking step (58) takes place after the gradient threshold comparison (52). It is thus the opposite of the above additional feature of claim 1, which states that the spots are masked prior to the selection of the image portions which have a gradient greater than a threshold value.

17. The appellant did not dispute that there was a contradiction between the wording of claim 1 and the disclosure in figure 3 and the associated description.

18. For the above reasons, claim 1 according to the second auxiliary request does not meet the requirement of Article 84 EPC 1973 that the claims be supported by the description.