a) Violation of right to be heard 

According to the established case law of the boards of appeal, the violation of the right to be heard under Art. 113(1) EPC is a fundamental procedural deficiency in the first-instance proceedings that amounts to a special reason within the meaning of Art. 11 RPBA 2020 and justifies remittal to the department that issued the contested decision. The right to be heard was found to have been violated in the following cases:

T 2538/18 (lack of opportunity to make comments), T 1879/17 (the opposition division had violated the patent proprietor's right to be heard by deciding not to admit an auxiliary request into the proceedings without having looked at it), T 314/18 (witness offered but not heard), T 1817/16 (the opposition division had violated the patent proprietor's right to be heard by issuing the decision to revoke the patent before expiry of the time limit it had previously set for making written submissions), T 1928/17 (a party must not be taken by surprise by the inclusion of previously unknown grounds in the reasons for the decision), T 1414/18 (lack of opportunity to make comments), T 97/14 (the appellant's arguments had not been properly taken into account), T 560/20 (the appellant had not had an opportunity to present its comments on the sole ground on which the impugned division was based) and T 545/18 (the appellant had been unable to present arguments in relation to the objection under Art. 56 EPC).