4.2.3 Electronic filing of documents

Under decision of the President of the EPO dated 14 May 2021 (OJ 2021, A42), electronic filing of documents is admissible in opposition and appeal proceedings. There are numerous cases which deal with electronic filing of appeals before this became permissible (see, with regard to the principle of the protection of legitimate expectations, T 781/04 of 30 November 2005 date: 2005-11-30, T 991/04 of 22 November 2005 date: 2005-11-22 and T 331/08; see also T 2726/17 and T 1633/18, in which the board considered that a notice of appeal filed via the EPO Web-Form Filing service was validly filed; see also T 1295/20 of 28 January 2021 date: 2021-01-28).

In T 1764/08 the appellant filed its statement setting out the grounds of appeal via epoline^® on the very last day of the period specified in Art. 108, third sentence, EPC. The board held that, even if the EPO had warned the appellant, the warning would not have allowed the appellant to re-file the statement of grounds of appeal by an acceptable means within said period. Therefore, under the principle of good faith, there was no duty on the part of the EPO to warn the appellant. The DBA was of the same view in D 36/21 with regard to an appeal against a decision of the Examination Board which had been filed via email on the last day of the relevant period at 19:53 hours (see chapter V.C.2.6.2). To that extent, these cases differed from cases T 781/04 date: 2005-11-30, T 991/04 of 22 November 2005 date: 2005-11-22, T 514/05 and T 395/07, where the deficiency could have been identified in good time before the expiry of the relevant period.