Saturday, May 16, 2015 R 8/13 - Call for a Diplomatic Conference

Prior to the oral proceedings in petition for review proceedings before the Enlarged Board in its five-member composition, the petitioners, by letter dated 2 June 2014, filed further submissions in support of their petition and, on pages 12 and 13 of those submissions, stated with reference to R 19/12 that: "In any event as an auxiliary measure and in order to safeguard the rights of the petitioners-patentees and not to be precluded in other proceedings, we herewith object to the chairman of the current composition of the Enlarged Board of Appeal in this case for suspicion of partiality in line with the reasoning of R 19/12".

The reader may find the below worthwhile in view of the EPO's Online consultation: Boards of Appeal (click here), where the The European Patent Office invites of users of the European patent system concerning to suggest and comment on possible improvements of the functioning of the Boards of Appeal with respect to both their autonomy and the perception of their independence and their efficiency. The user consultation will run until 30 June 2015.
The consultation is done in the context of a structural reform of its Boards of Appeal that has been launched by the European Patent Organisation. The main features of the proposed reform are described in the document (CA/16/15 (pdf)), which has been presented by the European Patent Office to the Administrative Council in March and has met with broad support. The aim of the reform is to ensure and increase the organisational and managerial autonomy of the Boards of Appeal, the perception of their independence as enshrined in Article 23 EPC, as well as their efficiency within the legal framework of the current European Patent Convention. 
See also the EPO News message of 30 April 2015.