4.3.7 Submissions that should have been submitted or which were no longer maintained at first instance – Article 12(6), second sentence, RPBA 2020
This section has been updated to reflect case law and legislative changes up to 31 December 2023. For the previous version of this section please refer to the "Case Law of the Boards of Appeal", 10th edition (PDF). |
In T 2012/20 the request in hand was only submitted with the grounds of appeal without an indication of reasons. The board emphasised the primary object of the appeal proceedings (Art. 12(2) RPBA 2020) and recalled that appeal proceedings were not a continuation of examination proceedings. In the board’s view, the request at hand should have been submitted at the latest during oral proceedings before the examining division. The decision under appeal did not contain any surprising content which would have justified the filing of a new request at the appeal stage. All the objections were known and the applicant was explicitly given the opportunity to respond to these objections during the oral proceedings. See also T 1512/21.
In T 836/20, the appellant had merely submitted that it was not foreseeable that the examining division would stand by its objections even after the appellant's detailed explanations. However, the board emphasised that the appellant's confidence in its own case was not sufficient as a circumstance to justify late admission.