The unity of the European patent in opposition proceedings will be affected if the previous proprietor of the patent and the person replacing him pursuant to Art. 99(5) in respect of a particular Contracting State are not deemed to be joint proprietors (see I, 6). In this event, the opposition proceedings involving the different proprietors must be conducted separately. Since different requests may be submitted by the two proprietors (e.g. as regards amendments to the claims), the two sets of opposition proceedings may lead to different conclusions, e.g. as regards the text of the European patent or the scope of protection.