3.5. Exigence relative à une demande antérieure encore en instance
3.5.4 Demande en instance en cas de délivrance d'un brevet sur la base de la demande antérieure contre laquelle un recours a été formé
Dans l'affaire J 5/08, la chambre de recours juridique a dû décider si la demande initiale était encore en instance à la date de dépôt de la demande divisionnaire, ce dépôt ayant été effectué après que le recours eut été formé au sujet de la demande initiale, mais avant que la division d'examen n'ait décidé de faire droit au recours par voie de révision préjudicielle de la décision contestée (décision relative à la délivrance renvoyant au texte non rectifié de la revendication 1). Selon la chambre de recours juridique, une révision en vertu de l'art. 109 CBE 1973 en tant que telle ouvre la possibilité de procéder à un réexamen complet de la brevetabilité de l'objet revendiqué, indépendamment de la question de savoir si l'annulation de la décision contestée est ou non expressément ordonnée, ou si les motifs écrits sont limités à une question de droit spécifique. En l'espèce, la procédure de délivrance, à laquelle la décision relative à la révision mettait fin, était encore en instance jusqu'à la date de cette décision. La chambre de recours juridique a conclu que lorsqu'une décision est prise concernant le bien-fondé d'un recours, une demande est généralement en instance au sens de la règle 25 CBE 1973 (désormais règle 36(1) CBE) au moins jusqu'à la date où la décision est prise.
Dans l'affaire J 5/08, la chambre de recours juridique a également fait observer que les chambres ont rendu des décisions divergentes quant à la question de savoir si l'effet suspensif d'un recours a toujours pour conséquence de maintenir la procédure de délivrance en instance au sens de la règle 25 CBE 1973 (règle 36(1) CBE) pendant la procédure de recours. Certaines décisions semblent indiquer que tel est le cas (J 28/94 date: 1994-12-07, JO 1995, 742 et J 3/04). En revanche, dans l'affaire J 28/03, la chambre de recours juridique a jugé que la procédure de délivrance ne doit pas être considérée comme ayant été en instance pendant la procédure de recours si le recours a été rejeté pour irrecevabilité ; le statut d'une demande divisionnaire déposée alors qu'un recours formé contre la décision de délivrer le brevet sur la base de la demande initiale est en instance dépend de l'issue de ce recours. Dans la décision plus récente J 23/13 (qui concerne un recours formé contre le rejet de la demande antérieure), la chambre de recours juridique a renvoyé à la décision G 1/09 (JO 2011, 336) et a considéré que le rejet ultérieur du recours pour irrecevabilité ne changeait rien au fait qu'au moment du dépôt de la demande divisionnaire, il existait encore des droits substantiels.
- J 1/24
Résumé
In J 1/24 the Legal Board examined an appeal against the decision of the Receiving Section dated 14 September 2023 that the appellant's European patent application, filed on 24 May 2021, would not be treated as a divisional application. A decision to grant had been issued for the earlier application (hereinafter parent application) on 18 February 2021, setting an original date of publication of the mention of grant as 17 March 2021. On 16 April 2021, the applicant had filed an appeal against this decision to grant. As a consequence, the date of publication of the mention of grant had been deleted. After filing its grounds of appeal, the appellant had withdrawn its appeal in April 2022.
The Legal Board observed that the question to be decided in the present case was whether the parent application was still pending according to R. 36 EPC when the divisional application was filed. It recalled that in G 1/09 (point 3.2.4 of the Reasons), the Enlarged Board had concluded that a "pending application" was a patent application in a status in which substantive rights deriving therefrom under the EPC were (still) in existence. Substantive rights, which included provisional protection under Art. 67 EPC, might continue to exist after the refusal of the application until the decision to refuse becomes final (G 1/09, point 4.2.1. of the Reasons). The retroactive effect of a final decision refusing the rights conferred did not influence the pending status of the application before such decision was final. The Legal Board also recalled that, according to an obiter dictum in G 1/09, in the case of grant the pending status of a European patent application normally ceases on the day before the mention of its grant is published.
The Legal Board referred to J 28/03, which differentiated between the decision to refuse the parent application and the decision to grant the parent application, wherein an appeal against the decision to grant the patent as requested could not benefit from the suspensive effect of an appeal against the refusal of a patent application. It noted that in J 28/03, the date of publication of the mention of grant was not deleted, so that the grant of the patent became effective. The earlier application was therefore no longer "pending". On the contrary in the present case, the date of publication of the mention of the grant had been deleted as a result of the appeal filed and therefore the parent application was still pending.
The Legal Board was not convinced by the principle stated in J 28/03 that the answer to the question, whether the parent application was still "pending", depended on the outcome of the appeal against its grant. It referred to Art. 106(1), second sentence, EPC, according to which an appeal has suspensive effect, and observed that the provision did not distinguish between an appeal against the refusal or against the grant of a patent. The later decision G 1/09 stated that a patent application refused by the examining division was still pending within the meaning of R. 25 EPC 1973 until the expiry of the period for filing an appeal. The Legal Board found that the same conclusion had to apply to R. 36(1) EPC in its former and its current version. It further concluded that "pending grant proceedings" were not required, as pending proceedings could not be equated with a pending application (G 1/09). The issue was whether substantive rights still derived from the application. In the present case, the deletion of the date of the mention of grant prevented the grant of the patent becoming effective. Thus, substantive rights still derived from the application which was therefore still pending.
The Legal Board disagreed with the position in J 28/03 that "an appeal against a decision granting a patent and resulting in the publication of the grant of the patent would be expected to be inadmissible with respect to Art. 107(1) EPC and should therefore not benefit of the possibility to file a divisional application even during the appeal procedure". The current practice of the EPO treats appeals against the grant of a patent as appeals validly filed, with the consequence that the date of the mention of the grant is deleted in such a case. The board considered it inconsistent to view an appeal in two different ways: on the one hand, for the mention of the grant to be deleted, the appeal would only need to be admissible; on the other hand, the application of the suspensive effect would depend on the outcome of the appeal proceedings. There was no basis in Art. 106(1) EPC for this approach. In the established case law of the Boards of Appeal, an example of a clearly inadmissible appeal that should have no suspensive effect was an appeal without basis in the EPC, e.g. filed by a third party. The EPC however had no provision restricting appeals of the applicant against the grant of a patent. Such an appeal could not therefore be seen as clearly inadmissible. Thus, the parent patent application at hand was still pending when the divisional application was filed.