5.5.1 Due care on the part of the applicant
In J 7/16 the Legal Board held that, for health reasons beyond his control, the former representative had not been capable of running the case in a proper way although he had taken every effort to fulfil his duties. This finding prevented the applicant from suffering from the inappropriate procedural conduct of its former representative as it had no reason to suspect that he could not be relied on.
In T 381/93 of 12 August 1994 date: 1994-08-12 the board observed that the applicant was entitled to rely on his duly authorised professional representative to deal with the EPO. However, the board held that to the extent that he was on notice that a time limit had not been met and/or that instructions were required in order to meet it, an applicant had a duty to take all due care in the circumstances to meet the time limit.
In T 1954/13 the appellant (applicant) issued its US representative with an order to "stop work". It appeared to the board that the appellant could not expect that the "stop work" order would have no consequence at all, i.e. that work continued as usual. Yet, there was nothing on file which would suggest that measures had been taken by the appellant in order to somehow compensate for the issuance of the "stop work" order. If instructions had been given by the appellant to the effect that no information should be sent to it, the board found this would be an additional aspect for a finding that the appellant itself had not acted with all due care required by the circumstances.