2.3. Surprising grounds or evidence

2.3.1 General principles

2.3.2 The meaning of "grounds or evidence"

2.3.3 Opportunity to comment on evidence

2.3.4 Documents supplied by applicants but used against them

2.3.5 Document cited containing information already known

2.3.6 Reliance on the International Preliminary Examination Report (IPER)

2.3.7 Change of provisional opinion

2.3.8 Statement of grounds of appeal not received by respondent

T 17/22: Catchword: see point 1.2.2 of the reasons.
T 1564/18: Catchword:
Since neither the annex to the summons nor any of the previous communications of the examining division contained the essential legal and factual reasons leading to the finding in the appealed decision that claim 1 of the main request lacked novelty over the prior-art device considered for the first time in the novelty assessment of the refusal, and since no reason was given why the amendments made in advance of the oral proceedings held in absentia justified the change to this new closest prior art, the decision was issued in violation of the right to be heard even though the prior-art device on which the refusal was based was disclosed in the same document as a closest prior art considered previously in the examination procedure.

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