2.6.1 Legal provisions

Under Art. 108 EPC a statement setting out the grounds of appeal shall be filed within four months after the date of notification of the decision in accordance with the Implementing Regulations (see R. 99 EPC).

Under R. 64(b) EPC 1973 a statement identifying the extent to which amendment of the impugned decision was requested had to be included in the notice of appeal. Under the EPC 2000 the appellant must indicate 'the reasons for setting aside the decision impugned, or the extent to which it is to be amended' in the statement of grounds (R. 99(2) EPC; see also T 358/08); up to now this had been left to board of appeal case law under Art. 108, third sentence, EPC 1973.

Art. 12(2) RPBA 2007 requires the statement of grounds and the reply to contain the parties' complete cases. They have to set out clearly and concisely the reasons why it is requested that the decision under appeal be reversed, amended or upheld, and should specify expressly all the facts, arguments and evidence relied on.

If the notice of appeal does not contain anything that can be regarded as a statement of grounds, the appeal is inadmissible unless a written statement of grounds is received by the EPO within the time limit set in Art. 108 EPC (R. 99(2) EPC and R. 101(1) EPC). If an appeal is to be rejected as inadmissible solely because the statement of grounds was not filed in due time the fee for appeal is not refundable (T 13/82, OJ 1983, 411).