Trilateral Project 24.1-Biotechnology 203

Since each claimed invention is related to a monoclonal antibody to antigen A, the industrial field of application are considered to be the same among these claims.

As long as no monoclonal antibodies to antigen A were known before the filing, all the claimed inventions have the same problem to be solved that they provided a monoclonal antibody which can bind to the same antigen A.

Therefore, the requirement of the unity of invention is satisfied.

The above practice does not depend on whether antigen A is novel or known.

However, when at least one of the monoclonal antibodies to antigen A was publicly known as of the filing, it could not be said that the technical problem to be solved, which is unsolved before the filing, is identical, simply because every claimed monoclonal antibody has the ability to bind to antigen A.

Furthermore, it could not be said that the substantial part of the matters being to be stated in the claim are the same.

Therefore, the requirement for the unity of invention would not be satisfied in such a case.