m) Further developing arguments within the framework of the appeal case as submitted so far 

In T 247/20 the board held that an amendment to a party's appeal case was a submission which was not directed to the requests, facts, objections, arguments and evidence relied on by the party in its statement of grounds of appeal or its reply. In other words, it went beyond the framework established therein (see also T 2988/18). In the case in hand, the arguments which the appellant (proprietor) had presented during the oral proceedings and to which respondent 2 objected were all aimed at illustrating, refining or further developing the arguments already presented with the grounds of appeal and at countering the arguments made by respondent 2 in this context. To the extent that additional passages or figures were referred to, this merely served that purpose. The board noted that no additional pieces of evidence had been introduced and that both the patent and D1 were very concise documents. In view of the above, the board held that the arguments at issue did not amount to an amendment of the appellant's appeal case. The board added that oral proceedings would serve no purpose if the parties were limited to presenting a mere repetition of the arguments put forward in writing. Instead, parties had to be allowed to refine their arguments, and even to build on them, provided they stayed within the framework of the arguments, and of course the evidence, submitted in a timely fashion in the written proceedings.

In T 1807/19 the board considered that the appellant's (opponent's) objection of lack of inventive step in view of D14 submitted one month before the oral proceedings before the board against the subject-matter of claim 1 of auxiliary request I (filed with the reply to the statement of grounds of appeal) did not constitute an amendment to the appellant's case as this objection remained within the framework of its case put forward on appeal. This objection was essentially the same as the inventive-step objection raised against claim 1 of the patent as maintained by the opposition division, as the appellant considered that there was still only one and the same distinguishing feature over D14. Consequently Art. 13(2) RPBA 2020 did not apply.

In T 684/18 too, the board took account of the appellant's arguments at the oral proceedings in so far as they were based on the written submissions it had filed after the summons. The board saw no reason to doubt that these arguments and the associated documents AM1 bis AM3 should be admitted; they were new arguments in support of the view already taken in the grounds of appeal that the materials disclosed in D2 had the claimed relationship in terms of mechanical strength. The board therefore considered that the appeal case had not been amended within the meaning of Art. 13 RPBA 2020.