5.4.3 Cause of mistake remains unclear

In T 529/09 the board allowed the request for re-establishment of rights. The board accepted that the representative's firm had a well-functioning and reliable system in place for processing incoming mail and monitoring time limits. The fact that in the case at issue the communication was apparently misplaced (since it did not reach the representative in charge and the time limit set in it was not entered in the computer system of the firm) had to be regarded as an isolated mistake in an otherwise satisfactory system. While the precise circumstances of the mistake could not be elucidated any further, this was not a sufficient reason for denying that all due care required by the circumstances had been observed in the present case. See also T 580/06, T 1355/09.

In J 7/15 the Legal Board could not determine with any degree of certitude what caused the non-payment of the renewal fee. The applicant had used the services of an external company for paying the renewal fees, a system which had worked flawlessly for more than 15 years, but failed in the case in hand. In the circumstances the board followed the reasoning of T 529/09 and gave the benefit of the doubt to the appellant, granting the request for re-establishment of rights.