a) Appeal filed by wrong company 

In T 340/92 the appellant was a company which had obviously been named in the notice of appeal by mistake, instead of a subsidiary, which was the real opponent. The actual appellant was the only party adversely affected by refusal of the opposition, and was readily identifiable through its representative, who was named in the appeal dossier. The board held that this deficiency could be remedied under R. 65(2) EPC 1973 (R. 101(2) EPC). See also T 875/06.

However, if the notice of appeal was filed by an adversely affected party, but the grounds of appeal were filed by a different company which was not a party to the opposition proceedings, let alone a party adversely affected by the outcome of those proceedings, the appeal could not be held admissible. No provision having been made in the Implementing Regulations pursuant to Art. 133(3), last sentence, EPC 1973 the EPC 1973 did not allow the representation of one legal person by the employee of another economically related legal person, who could not therefore file the grounds of appeal on the other's behalf (T 298/97, OJ 2002, 83).

According to G 1/12 (OJ 2014, A114), the identity of the appellant, i.e. the person entitled to appeal, has to be established by expiry of the two-month period prescribed in Art. 108, first sentence, EPC at the latest (see R. 101(1) EPC). In certain circumstances, errors in the information identifying the appellant can be corrected under R. 101(2) EPC (for more details on this, see chapter V.A.2.5.2).