The Enlarged Board of Appeal held that an inconsistency between a patent's claims and its descriptive text must be corrected only where that inconsistency causes non-compliance with a specific requirement of the European Patent Convention, including the novelty and inventive-step provisions of Articles 52 to 57, the sufficiency requirement of Article 83, the clarity requirement of Article 84, and the disclosure requirements of Articles 76(1) and 123. The board's own communique states that an inconsistency alone does not automatically require amendment. Practically, this should reduce examiners' routine requests to amend descriptions purely for formal consistency with the claims, though descriptions must still be amended wherever an inconsistency actually produces one of the listed compliance failures, and any deletions that do proceed may carry more weight during later enforcement. The decision applies to all pending European patent applications, including those filed by Indian companies seeking protection in Europe, and reshapes prosecution strategy for patent attorneys managing European filings.