Friday, May 15, 2015 T 1756/11 - Third party excluded from the party?

This is an appeal against a decision of the Opposition Division to maintain European Patent No. 1 219 158 in amended form in accordance with the proprietor's first auxiliary request.

The opponent filed its notice of appeal on 9. August 2011 while paying the appeal fee. The grounds were filed on 23. September 2011.

Observations by third parties were filed on 17. January 2013 and, in accordance with Art. 114 (2) EPC, communicated by the Board towards the parties.

The preliminary opinion of the Board was issued on 30. September 2014. Oral proceedings took place on 14. January 2015.

Neither the Appellant or respondent commented on the Observations by third parties.

The Board in this decision decides to disregard the late-filed third party observations and to refrain from mentioning them in its decision. Cited below is the board's motivation for this.

Headnote

"See Reasons 2"

Briefly paraphrased and translated as:

Reason 2.3: Art. 114(2) gives the Opposition Division the right to disregard late-filed facts or evidence. However, this applies to filings by parties to the proceedings, which according to Art. 115 a third party is not. Nevertheless, Art. 114(2) is considered to still apply to third party observations which were filed after the opposition time limit by way of a legal fiction according to T 951/91, reason 5.9.

The reasoning behind this is to prevent Art. 115 being (ab)used to expand the rights of third parties or even parties to the proceedings.

Reason 2.5: Although a third party thus has no right to have its observations considered by the Opposition Division, it is common practice for the Opposition Division to at least comment on the relevance of such late-filed third party observations in their decision.

Reason 2.6: Due to the third party not being a party to the proceedings, there is thus no need to, in case of late-filed third party observations (i.e., filed after the time limit for filing the notice of opposition), to comment on their inadmissibility in case the Opposition Division considered the observations not relevant and further disregarded them.

Reason 2.7: On the other hand, the Opposition Division may nevertheless consider and examine such late-filed observations out of its own motion under Art. 114(1) if it considers them prima facie relevant.

Reason 2.8: However, in appeal proceedings, the own-motion principle applies to a lesser degree ("verliert (...) das Gewicht"), especially in inter-partes proceedings, G 9/91, G10/91, reason 18. Here, the impartiality of the Board of Appeal is of up-most importance.

Reason 2.9: The Board of Appeal thus generally needs to disregard late-filed third party observations, except when they relate to amendments during the opposition or appeal-proceedings, G 9/91, G10/91, reason 19, in which case the Board may or may not admit them into the proceedings.

Reason 2.10: A party to the proceedings may however at all times submit comments on new facts or evidence from such third party observations, when these in their view can affect the decision. This right comes forth from Art. 113(1), i.e., the right to be heard. In this case, the Board has to decide on the (in)admissibility of such late-filed comments from the party to the proceedings.

Reason 2.11: In the present case, despite there being claim amendments during the opposition proceedings, the Board is of the opinion that the (anonymous) late-filed third party observations are to be disregarded and not mentioned in the decision. No party commented on the observations either in accordance with reason 2.10.