The Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) decided that as a matter of principle, a European patent is to be granted for an invention which meets the patentability criteria, and, as such, the principle of a narrow interpretation is to apply to clauses excluding patentability, for instance of diagnostic methods. For a method to be considered a diagnostic method, it must include all the steps relating to it. There is no diagnostic method if one of the steps is lacking.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal decided on the 5^th December 1984 on the question of novelty and second medical indications. It held that a patent must not be granted for claims directed to the use of a substance or composition for the treatment of the human or animal body by therapy. However, a patent may be granted with claims directed to the use of a substance or composition for the manufacture of a medicament for a specified new and inventive therapeutic application (“Swiss claim”).