5.9. New submissions in proceedings resumed before the boards

In R 16/13 the Enlarged Board set the contested decision aside and ordered that the proceedings (in T 379/10, closed by decision of T 379/10 of 21 September 2015 date: 2015-09-21, decision under review of T 379/10 of 5 March 2013 date: 2013-03-05) be resumed. On doing so, the board held that such resumptions of appeal proceedings were confined to rectifying the defect identified on review. The appellant took the view that filing comparative tests was an essential part of the comments that R 16/13 had allowed it to make. But the newly filed tests raised an admissibility issue: whether they merely helped the appellant to overcome the board's objection – which R 16/13 had said it could comment on – or whether they went further and would thus extend the subject-matter of the resumed proceedings beyond that specified in the petition for review decided on in R 16/13. The board held that the new tests and line of argument would indeed extend the subject matter, and therefore declined to admit them into the resumed proceedings.