On 3 September 2026, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office issued its decision in G 1/25 “Hydroponics”, clarifying a long-debated question in European patent practice: when claims are amended, must the description also be adapted?
The Enlarged Board held that an inconsistency between amended claims and the description or drawings must be addressed if it results in non-compliance with a requirement of the European Patent Convention (EPC). However, the EPC does not directly and explicitly require applicants to amend the description merely to achieve formal consistency with the amended claims.
Why does G 1/25 matter?
Practitioners welcome G 1/25 as it lies at the heart of a very practical debate between applicants working together with their patent attorneys, and EPO examiners: after narrowing the claims, how much of the description must be rewritten? For years, applicants invested significant time, effort, and money adapting sometimes lengthy descriptions,