h) Inventive step objection following unsuccessful novelty objection 

In its communication under Art. 15(1) RPBA, the board in T 684/18 expressed doubts about the arguments the appellant (opponent) had put forward on the novelty of claim 1 of the main request. This prompted the appellant to attack inventive step. The board held that its comment in relation to the novelty of the claimed subject-matter had not in itself given rise to any new issue that could have justified responding with a new attack on inventive step.

In T 1042/18 the appellant (opponent) had raised new objections of lack of inventive step over D4 or D5, which it had previously taken as a basis for novelty objections. In the board's view, these novelty objections could not be regarded as exceptional circumstances justifying the admission of new objections of lack of inventive step over these documents. The findings in T 131/01 and T 597/07 had to be understood against the specific background of those cases and the legal situation at the time (see, by contrast, T 1029/14, T 448/03 and T 184/17). In particular, the board held that the finding that it was impossible to substantiate lack of inventive step as a ground for opposition if lack of novelty was already being asserted on the basis of the same document could not be applied in such a general sense to appeal proceedings. Along the same lines T 1179/17 and T 1407/18.