1.2. Exclusion from inspection under Rule 144 EPC

R. 144 EPC (see R. 93 EPC 1973) indicates those parts of the file which are to be excluded from inspection pursuant to Art. 128(4) EPC. These include documents excluded from inspection by the President of the EPO, who can exclude from inspection documents that would not serve the purpose of informing the public about the European patent application or the resulting European patent pursuant to R. 144(d) EPC in conjunction with Art. 128(4) EPC.

The President's power to exclude documents from file inspection was last exercised in the decision of the President of the EPO dated 12 July 2007 (OJ SE 3/2007, 125, see above), which provides under Art. 1(2) that documents other than those referred to in Art. 1(1) of the decision "shall be excluded from file inspection at the reasoned request of a party or his representative if their inspection would be prejudicial to the legitimate personal or economic interests of natural or legal persons". Documents may, exceptionally, be excluded by the EPO of its own motion (Art. 1(2)(b) of the decision).