Key points
- The Board, about the admissibility of the appeal of the opponent, recalls that an appeal of an opponent is admissible if the statement of grounds presents at least one aspect sufficiently that is suitable to take away the foundation of the impugned decision to maintain the patent or to maintain the patent in amended form (in translation from the German original).
- It is not necessary, for admissibility, to specifically indicate which Article of the EPC is invoked or to cite case law.
- It does not matter, for admissibility of the appeal, if other parts of the appeal are insufficient, because admissibility of the appeal can only be decided on in entirety (still my translation).
- In the present case, the appeal is admissible because of the inventive step attack based on D7 and D8, even though D7 and D8 are not admitted into the proceedings as these documents should have been filed in the first instance proceedings. Article 12(4) RPBA 2007 is applied after Rule 99(2) EPC.
- The Board explains that prima facie relevance does not mean that the documents are automatically admissible. “Das Kriterium der prima facie Relevanz führt im Rahmen von Artikel 12 (4) VOBK 2007 indes nicht stets zur Zulassung neuen Vorbringens. Insoweit ist das Regelungsziel von Artikel 12 (4) VOBK 2007 zu berücksichtigen. ... Diesem Ziel würde es zuwiderlaufen, wenn neues Vorbringen, das erstmals mit der Beschwerdebegründung oder -erwiderung erfolgt, stets zugelassen würde, wenn es prima facie relevant wäre. Nach der Rechtsprechung der Beschwerdekammern führt die prima facie Relevanz eines Dokuments daher nicht zwingend dazu, dass die Kammer ihr Ermessen dahingehend ausübt, dieses in das Verfahren zuzulassen”.
- The patentee had argued for the first time during the oral proceedings before the Board that the documents were filed in response to the written decision of the OD. The Board considers this argument to be not convincing and leaves open the question of whether the argument in favour of the admissibility is in itself late-filed and inadmissible.
EPO T 2270/17
decision text omitted.
source http://justpatentlaw.blogspot.com/2021/03/t-227017-admissibilty-arguments.html
