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G 4/19 "Double patenting" - Press Communiqué and decision

Press Communiqué of 22 June 2021 on decision G 4/19 of the Enlarged Board of Appeal was issued yesterday. The Enlarged Board held that a European patent application can be refused by reason of the prohibition on double patenting. The Press Communiqué is cited below in full (emphasis added); it gives the main conclusion and argument - reference is made to the full decision for the full reasoning and the scope of the prohibition. The full decision is also replicate below; it is noet yet available on the EPO "Recent decisions" pages, but it is available as pdf in the register (pdf). 

D 11/19 - Pilot project EQE 2019 on a computer: legality & equal treatment challenged in appeal


In this EQE appeal against a decision awarding 41 marks for paper B 2019, "requests were made to revoke the decision and to have to quantify the extent to which the advantage of the participants in the "pilot project" of the EQE 2019 was reflected in a better result, and based on this knowledge, in particular to reevaluate task B of the complainant, so that the complainant's entire 2019 EQE is deemed to have been passed". "As an alternative, it is requested to revoke the decision and to arrange for the examination committee to quantify the extent to which the advantage of the participants in the "pilot project" of the EQE 2019 was reflected in a better result, and based on this knowledge, in particular, task B of the complainant is reassigned rate so that the complainant's entire 2019 EQE is deemed to have been passed". Various further requests were filed. The Disciplinary Board summarized this part of the complaint as "The complainant [finally] complains about a violation of the principle of equal treatment and an impairment of the impartiality of the examiners in connection with the implementation of the pilot test on the occasion of the European qualifying examination 2019, in which 15 selected applicants were allowed to write the work on task B with the help of a computer. He specifically asserts practical simplifications in the preparation of the work using a computer, which resulted in a considerable time advantage and better examination conditions. In view of the small number of 15 participants, anonymity and impartiality in the correction were not guaranteed. Overall, the regular applicants in the European qualifying examination 2019 were clearly at a disadvantage,"