Under the European Patent Convention (EPC), identifying the inventor of a given invention is theoretically very important since "right to a European patent (...) belong[s to the inventor or his successor in title", according to the first-to-file principle. In practice however, the European Patent Office (EPO) never investigates whether the proposed inventor is indeed the true inventor. Indeed, "the purposes of proceedings before the [EPO, the applicant shall be deemed to be entitled to exercise the right to the European patent".