7.1. Following remittal back to the opposition division

In T 1108/21 the board, having accelerated the proceedings under Art. 10(3) RPBA in response to the legitimate and reasoned interest of opponent 1 to bring the proceedings to an end as soon as possible, remitted the case to the opposition division for further prosecution. To partially mitigate the negative impact of this course of action on opponent 1, the board explicitly ordered an acceleration of the opposition proceedings.

In T 2916/19, however, the board rejected the respondent’s request for the board to instruct the opposition division to accelerate the proceedings, since the board was not empowered to impose time constraints to the department of first instance in charge of the case. The question of when or at which pace the case was to be dealt with by the opposition division was a managerial decision to be taken by the department of first instance.