2.6.1 Legal provisions

Under Art. 108 EPC a statement setting out the grounds of appeal shall be filed within four months after the date of notification of the decision in accordance with the Implementing Regulations. Under R. 99(2) EPC, appellants have to indicate in the statement of grounds of appeal the reasons for setting aside the decision impugned, or the extent to which it is to be amended, and the facts and evidence on which the appeal is based.

Under Art. 12(3) RPBA the statement of grounds of appeal and the reply shall contain a party's complete appeal case. Accordingly, they shall set out clearly and concisely the reasons why it is requested that the decision under appeal be reversed, amended or upheld, and should specify expressly all the requests, facts, objections, arguments and evidence relied on. Art. 12(3) RPBA has the same content as Art. 12(2) RPBA 2007, apart from a few amendments (for consistency with the new paragraphs in Art. 12(2) and (6) RPBA, the terms "requests" and "objections" were added).

Under R. 64(b) EPC 1973 a statement identifying the extent to which amendment of the impugned decision was requested already had to be included in the notice of appeal. T 358/08 contains a detailed analysis of the situation under R. 64(b) EPC 1973 as compared to the provisions of R. 99(1) and (2) EPC.

If the notice of appeal does not contain anything that can be regarded as a statement of grounds, the appeal is inadmissible unless a written statement of grounds is received by the EPO within the time limit set in Art. 108 EPC (R. 99(2) EPC and R. 101(1) EPC) (T 13/82, OJ 1983, 411).