In T 288/92 the board held that it was not permissible to amend a generic formula defining a class of chemical compounds by restricting an originally disclosed generic definition of a substituent to a specific (individual) one which was arbitrarily selected from chemical entities, such as in the examples, without some support for such restriction in the general part of the description (see also T 1537/14).

It is a generally established principle in the case law of the boards of appeal that a generic term or embodiment does not disclose a specific term or embodiment unless the application teaches otherwise (T 88/12). In the case in hand in T 88/12 the generic term "a laundry machine" did not disclose the specific term "a drying machine".

In T 3/03 the board decided that an amendment consisting in the generalisation of an effect obtained for particular embodiments was not admissible. In the case in point, the results obtained for particular embodiments could not be generalised since the particular circumstances of use, including the type of additive used, determined whether or not filterability was improved.