T 0935/14 - Broad but clear vs. broad and vague

 Key point

• In this examination appeal, the question is Article 84 of broad claims.
• “10.2 The Board agrees with the appellant [applicant] that broad features may be considered clear, but only under the proviso that the borders of the - broad - scope of protection can be clearly inferred by the skilled person. This makes the distinction between broad but clear and broad and vague. If a feature formulation is such that some further technical features appear to be implied, particularly in view of the features' technical function, but it is not clear what those precisely are, then the claimed feature is vague and not clear.”
• The Board finds the claims to be broad and vague.

T 0935/14 -

https://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/recent/t140935eu1.html

10.2 The Board agrees with the appellant [applicant] that broad features may be considered clear, but only under the proviso that the borders of the - broad - scope of protection can be clearly inferred by the skilled person. This makes the distinction between broad but clear and broad and vague. If a feature formulation is such that some further technical features appear to be implied, particularly in view of the features' technical function, but it is not clear what those precisely are, then the claimed feature is vague and not clear.

11. In the present case, the claim fails on more than one account in view of the above considerations.

[...]

11.2 A minimal claim construction, i.e. with no further implied features, would also be technically inconsistent: for instance, in that a hosted account is created to be used for messaging by the terminal, but is actually not used (point 7 above). This raises the question as to which other features may be implied, either as message formatting, or upon the server side, or both, so that the account is used.

11.3 The (intended) answer may lie in the account creation steps. But, as noted above, the creation steps are vaguely defined. For instance, under a literal reading, an account creation wherein the server merely checks whether the identification data relating to the terminal device is properly formatted falls under the claim scope. But then, the question arises how this account can be used, as required by the claim? For the claim to make technical sense, some further technical features need to be read into the claim. It is not clear which those are.