7.1.4 Duration of deliberations

In T 1138/12 the board pointed out that the EPC did not prescribe for how long an opposition division had to deliberate to reach a decision. It was therefore conceivable that the members, having discussed the case in advance, might find their preliminary opinion confirmed by the submissions at the oral proceedings and then agree that that was the case by, for instance, simply making eye contact or nodding at the end of the discussion with the parties. Both the duration and the form of an opposition division's deliberations depended on the scope and complexity of the case in hand, the degree of compatibility of the members' opinions, which might diverge, playing a major role in this regard.