1.3.1 Relationship with EU law

In G 3/19 (OJ 2020, A119), concluded as to the legal nature of the EU Commission's notice of interpretation that it was not legally binding. The legally effective and binding interpretation of Union law, whether provisions of primary law, e.g. the treaties, or of secondary law, e.g. regulations and directives, lay within the exclusive competence of the CJEU. Irrespective of this, as an independent international organisation with its own autonomous legal order, the EPOrg was not directly bound by Union law. It was therefore all the more true that a legally non-binding notice on the interpretation of the EU Biotech Directive issued by the EU Commission in reaction to decisions of the Enlarged Board on the interpretation of a provision of the EPC, i.e. Art. 53(b) EPC, did not form part of EPC law.