9.2. Reimbursement where request for re-establishment found to be redundant

In both T 1198/03 and T 2317/13 the respective requests for re-establishment of rights were found to be redundant (see also chapter III.E.6.6. above for details on these cases).

In T 1198/03, distinguishing the case in hand from other cases where an application for re-establishment of rights was equally redundant but the boards did reimburse the corresponding fee, the board stated that, in the case in hand, restitutio was not, as a matter of principle, applicable as a remedy, and that a party should not be able to reap cost benefits from the redundancy of a restitutio request filed on an auxiliary basis. Otherwise parties might be encouraged to file such inapplicable requests.

In T 2317/13 the board decided to reimburse the fee for re-establishment. It compared the case with the one in T 152/82 date: 1983-09-05 (OJ 1984, 301), in which the fee had been reimbursed after it became apparent that the re-establishment request would not have become effective.