e) Justified response to new developments in the case following the communication under Article 15(1) RPBA 

In T 415/20 D15 and D16 were ISO standards filed two days before the oral proceedings before the board in support of an argument concerning the measurement in the report D14. D15 and D16 were submitted in reaction to an argument of appellant I raised only two weeks before the oral proceedings. Thus, the submission of D15 and D16 resulted from the development of the case on appeal and took place at the earliest possible point in time. This, in the board’s view, constituted exceptional circumstances in favour of their admittance in the sense of Art. 13(2) RPBA. In T 1411/19 the appellant raised an objection of lack of inventive step to claim 1 of auxiliary request 1 on the basis of documents D1 and D2 for the first time during oral proceedings before the board. Its related submissions went well beyond the objection, likewise based on documents D1 and D2, previously raised in the written proceedings to the subject-matter of granted claim 4. However, these new submissions had followed a change in the interpretation of claim 1 of the auxiliary request in the light of the arguments made during the oral proceedings and a discussion, for the first time, of certain aspects of the disclosure of D1. The board held that, in view of this new legal and factual situation, there were exceptional circumstances within the meaning of Art. 13(2) RPBA which justified the admission of the new objection on grounds of procedural fairness.