Before a European patent application is granted, the EPO sends a notice of allowance to the applicant along with a copy of the text intended for grant which the applicant either approves for grant or requests correction/amendment.
A recent decision from the European Boards of Appeal (T 0506/16) highlights the importance of checking the text intended for grant. In this case the applicant approved the text intended for grant without noticing that two pages of claims had been omitted from the text they approved. The Board found that the granted patent could not be corrected to include the omitted claims pages, stating:
"the obligation to check the text in which the patent is to be granted lies with the applicant, and if it does not draw the examining division's attention to any errors, then the appellant alone bears the responsibility for any errors remaining in the text, regardless of who is responsible for the error".
This decision is a strong reminder to double check that the text intended for grant matches with the expected text for grant, and in particular that all pages are present.
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