D 0001/94 (Power to examine of the Disciplinary Board of Appeal) of 17.05.1995

1. In examination matters the competence of the Disciplinary Board of Appeal is restricted to reviewing decisions of the Examination Board only with respect to the correct application of the REE, its Implementing Regulations or higher-ranking law. Only alleged serious and obvious mistakes concerning the examination can be considered. These mistakes must be relevant to the decision under appeal, in the sense that the decision would have been different had the mistake not been made (confirming previous case law, D 1/92, OJ EPO 1993, 357, D 6/92, OJ EPO 1993, 361).

2. A translation error may be considered to be such a mistake and may constitute a violation of Article 11(3) REE since this provision assumes that the translation from the language selected by the candidate into one of the official languages of the EPO is totally correct. The Examination Board, therefore, in its decision has to give reasons why the translation errors were not found to be serious in the sense explained above.