This Supplementary publication to the Official Journal "EPO Boards of Appeal Case Law" presents summaries of decisions of the boards issued in 2017. The headnotes of the decisions published or scheduled for publication in the Official Journal of the EPO are set out in the annex.

As always, the case law report aims to provide a readily accessible overview of the latest developments in the boards' jurisprudence. It follows the established format of previous editions, with the case law arranged according to topic and short summaries of selected decisions for each. Of course no summary, however careful, can be a substitute for reading the decision itself. The full texts of all decisions included here can be accessed in the newly designed Boards of Appeal web page (www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals.html).

I would particularly like to thank the members of our Legal Research Service for their valuable work in compiling the present report. My thanks also go to the EPO Language Service, without whose support simultaneous publication in all three official languages would not have been possible, and to all other EPO staff who have helped produce the present publication.

I hope that all who read the report will find it useful.

Carl Josefsson

President of the Boards of Appeal