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In T 14/89 (OJ 1990, 432) the board pointed out that the principle of good faith governing proceedings between the EPO and the parties involved required that the applicant have his attention drawn to deficiencies in his application for re-establishment of rights which were obviously easy to correct (in the case in point: fee not paid and substantiation not supplied) if correction of the deficiencies could be expected within the two-month time limit for restitutio under Art. 122(2) EPC 1973. If this communication was not sent by the EPO within the two-month time limit, it had to be sent subsequently and a new time limit set. Acts, the deficiencies of which were corrected within this set time limit, were deemed to have been performed in due time within the meaning of Art. 122(2) EPC 1973. This case law was confirmed by the Legal Board of Appeal in a similar case, J 13/90 (OJ 1994, 456). In J 34/92 the board pointed out, however, that this only applied to time limits which were not absolute.
In J 41/92 (OJ 1995, 93) the board held that the users of the EPC could not, by merely asking the EPO to warn them of any deficiency that might arise in the course of the proceedings, shift their own responsibility for complying with the provisions of the EPC 1973. If, however, a deficiency was readily identifiable by the EPO and could easily be corrected within the time limit, the principle of good faith required the EPO to issue a warning (following T 14/89, OJ 1990, 432, and J 13/90, OJ 1994, 456). Whereas the EPO might be obliged, on the basis of the principle of good faith, to give information on a specific query, a party could not expect a warning in respect of any deficiency occurring in the course of the proceedings (see J 12/94; see also Chapter VI.A.2.3 concerning the limits to the EPO's obligations with regard to the protection of legitimate expectations).