g) No "last chance" doctrine 

In T 967/16 the amendment introduced for the first time in reply to the board's provisional opinion was a feature taken from the description. The board noted that the objection the respondents (proprietors) sought to overcome had already been raised in the notice of opposition. No reasons had been provided by the respondents why the auxiliary request in question could not have been filed at earlier stages of the proceedings. On the argument that this request was the "last chance" for the respondents to save their patent, the board referred to the case law which clearly stated that there was no established "last chance" doctrine or any absolute right for a patent proprietor to such a "last chance" request. Submissions of the parties filed late in appeal proceedings, regardless of whether they were requests, facts, objections or evidence, were always subject to Art. 12 and 13 RPBA 2020 and their admissibility, including that of late-filed requests, was always a matter for the board's discretion (with reference to Case Law of the Boards of Appeal, 9th ed. 2019, V.A.4.12.7, and to T 837/07 and T 1624/16).