a) Notification issues

In T 389/86 (OJ 1988, 87) the board stated that an appeal which was filed after pronouncement of a decision in oral proceedings but before notification of the decision duly substantiated in writing complied with the time limit pursuant to Art. 108, first sentence, EPC 1973. See also T 427/99, T 1125/07 and T 1431/12.

According to T 1281/01 the legal fiction that the decision (under appeal) had been delivered on the tenth day following its posting (R. 78(2) EPC 1973) did not apply when it had actually been delivered to a previously authorised representative after she had notified the EPO that the file had been transferred to another representative. Pursuant to R. 82 EPC 1973, the decision under appeal was deemed to have been notified on the date it was received by the authorised representative and the appeal had thus been filed in due time.