J 22/14 - Back and forth in the register
Can the legal division correct a transfer recorded in the register, if it later doubts the transfer was legal? In this unusual set of circumstances a transfer of a patent application is contested by the parties. We will refer to the parties as the appellant and the respondent.
Originally, a direct European patent application was filed in the name of the respondent. About 5 years later, the same representative filed a request to transfer the application from the name of the respondent to that of the appellant. As proof of the transfer selected pages of an Assignment Agreement were filed.
Just over a year later, a request is filed with the legal division to revert the transfer. It is argued that filing only selected pages of the agreement is not sufficient and that authorizations were both lacking and not substantiated. The request is accompanied with an injunction of a Kantonsgerichts in Zug that purportedly proved that the agreement was signed for the respondent by someone who was not authorized to do so.
The legal division reverts the transfer because there is no national (court) decision that the transfer was valid. (Bis zum Nachweis einer entsprechenden nationalen Entscheidung is daher der Rechtsübergang nicht i.S.v. Regel 22 EPÜ hinreichend nachgewiesen.)
The appellant requests an appealable decision and subsequently appeals it. The board reverts the decision of the legal division, and reverts the reversion.
Similar decisions between the same parties were made for patent applications in J 16/14, J 21/14, J 20/14, J 17/14, and for patents in J 18/14, J 19/14.
SHARE:
