4.6. No oral proceedings – decision in favour of the party

In their statement of grounds of appeal the appellants in T 494/92 made an unconditional request for oral proceedings. The board stated that in view of the positive conclusion it had reached regarding the question of inventive step, and in the absence of any other substantive and/or procedural issues, such oral proceedings would serve no purpose. The board thus treated the request as merely conditional (see also T 2445/11). In T 1050/09, the opposition division, referring to T 494/92, had treated the opponent's unconditional request for oral proceedings as merely conditional as it had decided in favour of the opponent. The board agreed and added that a successful party had no reason to doubt the correctness of the procedure leading to the decision in its favour.