s) Circumstances in the sphere of the representative 

(i) Change of representative or clerk 

It is the boards' established case law that a change of representative usually does not qualify as an exceptional circumstance that could justify late submission (see e.g. T 1080/15, citing CLB, 9th edn. 2019, V.A.4.8.2, as well as T 1904/16, T 301/17, T 664/17 and T 1758/22, and the other decisions cited there).

In T 615/17, for instance, the board confirmed that the admissibility of an amendment could not depend on whether there had been a change of representative, which was down to the choice made by the appellant for its own – possibly even strategic – reasons. It also reiterated that it was ultimately the applicant's responsibility to determine the subject-matter of a patent (T 382/96).

The board in T 1952/19 held that the same considerations applied in cases where responsibility for handling an appeal passed from one of the appellant's clerks to another.

(ii) Representative unable to contact appellant 

In T 2329/15 the board did not accept the appellant's lack of involvement in the prosecution of the case in hand as an exceptional circumstance. Exceptional circumstances generally concerned new or unforeseen developments in the appeal proceedings themselves. In the same vein, see T 190/19, in which, in addition, the late-filed amendments prima facie did not overcome all objections raised, gave rise to new objections and did not exclusively relate to objections raised for the first time by the board in its communication under Art. 15(1) RPBA.