f) Minutes 

In T 642/97 the board held that if a party was of the opinion that the minutes were incomplete or wrong since essential submissions were not reflected in the file it could request the opposition division to correct the minutes to preserve its rights. In the absence of such a request, the allegation of a substantial procedural violation could not be justified (see also T 231/99, T 99/08). In T 1277/15 the opposition division had not commented on the appellant's request for correction of minutes either in the contested decision on the merits or in any other, separate decision. The board, however, found that this procedural error had not had any impact on the outcome of the opposition proceedings.

In T 835/10 (referring to T 437/98) the appellant alleged that new arguments had been given in the decision of the examining division. The board did not agree and stated that the minutes gave a summary of what was discussed and did not have to expand the different steps of the reasoning given in writing later.

In T 685/14 the board took the view that the failure to transmit the minutes to the appellant was a procedural deficiency but, per se, not a fundamental one. A party should be in a position to file an appeal based on its own notes. Moreover, even after having received the minutes, the appellant had neither challenged their consistency with the decision, nor extended its case by any additional considerations. The board dismissed the appeal and refused the request for reimbursement of the appeal fee.

In T 853/10 the board held that, when judging whether a substantial procedural violation had occurred during the oral proceedings, the board could rely only on the minutes of the oral proceedings, which were not disputed by the patent proprietor (see also T 642/97), and on the facts agreed upon by all parties.