g) Late-filed evidence of a public prior use – not admitted 

In T 552/18 the board did not admit further evidence of a public prior use filed in reply to its communication under Art. 15(1) RPBA 2007 for the following reasons: These documents had been submitted at a very late stage of the proceedings and raised new questions. Although appellant 2 (opponent) had provided reasons why the documents had only been retrieved when they were, the board considered that there was no justification why they could not have been retrieved earlier if sufficient effort had been made. According to the board, there was no cogent reason why the evidence relating to the prior use had been submitted piecemeal. The board also held that the admission of these documents would go against the interests of procedural economy as laid down in Art. 13(1) RPBA 2020 and would require an adjournment of the oral proceedings as mentioned in Art. 13(3) RPBA 2007. Moreover, the documents presented did not enable the issues relating to the purity of the prior used powder to be resolved, as was required by Art. 13(1) RPBA 2020. The board also underlined that these issues' pertinence had already been known in the opposition proceedings.