Claims

The claims are the part of the patent which define the scope of the legal protection sought for the invention. The description and drawings are used to interpret the claims.

Most independent claims consist of two parts: the prior art portion and the characterising portion.

A process claim is a claim relating to a new process.

A product claim is a claim relating to a specific new product.

A product-by-process claim is a claim relating to a specific new product which is defined in terms of the way the product is produced.

Independent claims contain the main features of the invention. Any independent claim can be followed by one or more dependent claims relating to particular aspects of the invention.

Click on the "Translate this text" button to view the text of the claims in another language. If the text is in English, it can be translated into German, French, Italian, Portuguese or Spanish. If the text is not in English, it will be translated into English.

Click on the "Claims tree" button to view a tree representation of the independent claims and their dependent claims. Click on the + (plus) sign next to the claim number to expand the claims view and see how the dependent claims are hierarchically related. Click on the - (minus) sign to collapse the claims view.

Above the title of the patent document, you have four options:

• You can add this document to your own patent list by clicking on the star icon next to "In my patents list".
• You can view the file in the European Patent Register by clicking on the "EP Register" button (available for EP and Euro-PCT documents only).
• You can report a data error by clicking on the "Report data error" link. You will then be required to fill out a form so that the error can be corrected as soon as possible.
• You can print this page by clicking on the printer icon.