Sunday, January 10, 2016 T 823/11 Excessive length of proceedings

The Board of Appeal considered the examination proceedings excessively long (11 years between supplementary search report and oral proceedings). This was seen as a substantial procedural violation. The same holds for the lack of reasoning in the communications and decision of the examining division. The Board sets out the case law on both issues.
The Board does not remit the case but takes over and orders the auxiliary request (which was not admitted by the examining division) to be granted.