Annual Report 2022 of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
The Annual Report 2022 of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office was published today. It is available in English, French and German on the website of the Boards of Appeal.
Following the structural reform of the Boards of Appeal, the President of the Boards of Appeal formulated five-year objectives to reduce the number of pending cases to below 7 000 and to settle 90% of cases within 30 months by 2023. Thanks to the impressive commitment of the entire staff, the Boards of Appeal achieved the first of these objectives already in 2022. They settled a record number of 3 576 appeal cases and reduced the number of pending cases to 6 216 at the end of 2022. Moreover, the number of pending cases that are older than 30 months declined by 26.1% compared to 2021. A further substantial decrease is expected in 2023.
The Boards of Appeal are also ensuring a modern judiciary. Paper waste is decreased by working on digital copies of the appeal case and carbon emissions are reduced by holding oral proceedings by videoconference. In 2022, 55% of the members’ working files were produced electronically, and 71% of oral proceedings were conducted by videoconference. Furthermore, the Boards of Appeal adopted a comprehensive diversity and inclusion strategy in 2022, including workshops on intercultural awareness, neurodiversity, unconscious biases and microaggressions.
The quality of decisions remained a top priority for the Boards of Appeal. The 10th edition of the Case law of the Boards of Appeal, published in 2022, gives an up-to-date overview of the relevant case law in its systematic context. As in previous years, exchanges with judges from other courts and delegations from the user community continued to play an important role in 2022.
Contact
Nikolaus Obrovski
Jeannine Hoppe
Spokespersons of the Boards of Appeal
Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office
Richard-Reitzner-Allee 8 | 85540 Haar | Germany
boa-press@epo.org