4.3.11 Consideration of the parties' arguments in the written decision
The right to be heard under Art. 113(1) EPC requires that those involved be given an opportunity not only to present comments (on the facts and considerations pertinent to the decision) but also to have those comments considered, that is reviewed, with respect to their relevance for the decision in the matter (R 23/10; see also R 13/12, R 12/14). Decisions of boards of appeal are open only to review but not to appeal, and thus not covered by R. 111(2) EPC which requires that decisions which are open to appeal be reasoned (R 6/11; see, however, also R 12/10; see also in this chapter V.B.3.4.2).
In R 8/11 the Enlarged Board held that Art. 113(1) EPC obliged the decision-making body to allow the parties to present the necessary arguments on all essential aspects of the case, to take note of these arguments and to acknowledge them in its decision (see also R 19/12 of 12 April 2016 date: 2016-04-12). In R 8/15 the Enlarged Board stated that a party must be able to examine whether the board has afforded it the right to be heard in order to decide whether or not to file a petition for review.
In R 4/12 the Enlarged Board held that oral remarks made by a Chair directly before a decision is pronounced do not form part of the reasons that must reflect, within certain limits, a party's arguments.
In R 8/15 the Enlarged Board held that Art. 113(1) EPC must be interpreted more narrowly than R. 102(g) EPC. The latter requires a board to give reasons for its decision, but infringement thereof is not as such a ground for review. Reasons may be incomplete, but as long as they permit the conclusion that the board, in the course of the appeal proceedings, substantively assessed a certain point that it found it to be relevant, there is no violation of Art. 113(1) EPC (see also R 2/18, R 11/21, R 8/23). Confirming the approach taken in R 8/15, the Enlarged Board held in R 10/18 that a board is presumed to have taken into account a party's submissions that it did not address in the reasons for its decision, meaning that, in a first step, it had taken note of them and, in a second step, considered them, i.e. assessed whether they were relevant and, if so, whether they were correct. An exception may apply if there are indications to the contrary, e.g. if a board does not address in the reasons for its decision submissions by a party that, on an objective basis, are decisive for the outcome of the case, or dismisses such submissions without first assessing them as to their correctness.
In R 6/20 the Enlarged Board affirmed its previous decisions R 8/15 and R 10/18 and referred to point 1, second paragraph, of the latter’s Catchword stating that Art. 113(1) EPC would be infringed if the board did not address submissions that, in its view, were relevant for the decision in a manner adequate to show that the parties were heard on them, i.e. that the board substantively considered those submissions. The Enlarged Board clarified in this regard that the requirement that "the Board substantively considered those submissions" should be given the meaning that "the Board considered the contents of those submissions", with this consideration comprising matters pertaining to admittance of facts, evidence and requests, and/or relating to substantive law, i.e. the merits of a case. Applying this approach to the case at issue, the Enlarged Board held that in view of non-admittance to the appeal proceedings of certain submissions, there had been no point in discussing their merits. See also chapters III.B.2.5. "Consideration of the parties' arguments, requests, evidence and other submissions" and III.K.3.4.2 "Right to be heard – right to have submissions taken into consideration".
In R 10/20 the Enlarged Board endorsed the approach taken in R 10/18 in terms of presuming that a board has taken a party’s submissions into account and of how that presumption can be rebutted. It also clarified that it had to be glaringly obvious that a submission had been "objectively decisive for the outcome of the case". This followed from the fact that the review procedure under Art. 112a EPC was not as a rule aimed at reviewing matters of substantive law, and that exceptions to this principle could only be permitted under strict conditions.
Referring to the principles set out in R 10/18 and R 10/20 on the extent to which the duty to give reasons could be reviewed under Art. 112a EPC, the Enlarged Board confirmed in R 12/22 that deficiencies in the reasons were only relevant in review proceedings under the conditions of Art. 112a(2)(c) in conjunction with Art. 113(1) EPC. It was only under those conditions that the duty to state the reasons for a decision was the "correlate" of the right to comment under Art. 113(1) EPC. More generally, its "correlate" could be considered to be the right to have the comments taken into account. Contradictory reasoning could only be objected to if the contradictions were tantamount to the board not having dealt with the submissions in the grounds for its decision and this having been objectively decisive for the outcome of the case. It had to be glaringly obvious that contradictory reasoning amounted to non-reasoning, for example in that it made no sense at all.
In R 20/22 the petitioner pointed out that the decision under review did not use the term "continuously", which term was used in the petitioner’s argument, and that the absence of this term proved that the argument had not been taken into account. According to the Enlarged Board, however, it was derivable from the decision under review that the argument had been considered. Furthermore, the mere fact that the minutes of the oral proceedings before the board did not mention the petitioner’s argument did not mean that the board had not duly considered the argument when taking the decision at the oral proceedings (see also R 12/20). Similarly in R 8/23 the Enlarged Board noted that a board must have a considerable degree of freedom in the language it uses to refer to and summarise the documents before it. The Enlarged Board found that the omission of the word "waiver" in the board's final reference to a document that had been before it did not support a finding that the petitioner's right to be heard had been violated (see also R 7/23).
- R 0012/23
In R 12/23 the Enlarged Board of Appeal (hereinafter referred to as "EBA") summarised the petitioner’s assertions concerning procedural deficiencies regarding the ground for petition mentioned in Art. 112a(2)(c) in conjunction with Art. 113(1) EPC as follows.
(i) the petitioner had had no opportunity during the oral proceedings to argue on the standard applied by the board in the written decision.
(ii) the board had neglected the "gold standard" as one of two alternative approache.
- in the decision, the board had applied only the "essentiality test" and not also the "gold standard" thereby contravening R 2/14 an.
- the board had provided no opportunity to discuss the "gold standard", during the oral proceedings; an.
(iii) the decision was not sufficiently reasoned on the "gold standard" or on the "essentiality test".
The EBA found that the first alleged procedural deficiency was obviously unfounded, because it was in direct contradiction with the petitioner’s own conclusion which made it clear that the discussion in the oral proceedings had been "identically" mirrored in the written decision.
On the second alleged procedural deficiency, the EBA stated that it could not find that the board had obviously not applied the "gold standard" due to the fact that it may also have examined the criteria of the "essentiality test". The EBA had to rely on the board’s declaration that it had applied the "gold standard", given that the EBA was prevented from scrutiny of the application of the law, i.e. whether the board had applied the "gold standard" in an incorrect manner.
The EBA considered whether the R 2/14 rationale would at all apply to the case in hand and concluded that in R 2/14 it had been held that the board would have needed to address (three) alternative factual approaches to assessing sufficiency of disclosure. In the case in hand, however, the (two) approaches in question were legal approaches. Having opted for one of them and thus having determined the law, the board was under no obligation to apply the facts of the case to an alternative legal approach..
In this regard, the EBA noted that a board deciding on a case must establish the facts and apply the law to them. If a party puts forward several alternative sets of facts in order to support a specific finding of law, then the board must assess whether any of these sets support that finding and may only reject the suggested finding once it has concluded that none of the sets of facts justifies it. The EBA emphasised that there is no need to discuss alternative legal approaches, as distinguished from factual approaches, in the decision, because the board determines the law, in particular the correct legal approach. However, even though this had not been necessary, the board in the case in hand had still applied both approaches, i.e. the "gold standard" and the "essentiality test"..
The finding that the requirement to discuss alternative approaches set out in R 2/14 did not apply in this case presupposed that the board had given the party an opportunity to provide its comments on the correct legal approach. The petitioner itself stated that this had been the case. If, during the oral proceedings, the petitioner had considered that the board should not apply the "essentiality test" under the guise of the "gold standard", then it should have alerted the board to its view. The EBA concluded that there had been no violation of the petitioner’s right to be heard with respect to the second asserted procedural deficiency.
Concerning the third asserted procedural deficiency, the EBA recalled the criteria laid down in R 8/15 and R 10/18. It held that in line with point 1 of the Catchword of R 8/15, the board had addressed submissions it had identified as being relevant, in the reasons for the decision. The question was whether the board had also substantively considered those submissions as also required in point 1 of that Catchword. The EBA held that this had been the case and thus considered the third asserted procedural deficiency clearly unfounded.
The EBA concluded that the petition for review was clearly unallowable, since none of the three asserted fundamental deficiencies constituted a violation of the right to be heard.
- R 0007/22
Der Antrag auf Überprüfung in R 7/22 wurde darauf gestützt, dass die zu überprüfende Entscheidung in mehrfacher Hinsicht mit einem schwerwiegenden Verfahrensmangel behaftet sei, und – ebenfalls in mehrfacher Hinsicht – ein schwerwiegender Verstoß gegen Art. 113 EPÜ vorliege.
Bei der Prüfung der Begründetheit des Überprüfungsantrags bezüglich der geltend gemachten Verfahrensmängel gemäß Art. 112a (2) d) EPÜ erinnerte die Große Beschwerdekammer (GBK) daran, dass die in R. 104 EPÜ nicht genannten Verfahrensmängel nicht als schwerwiegende Verfahrensmängel im Sinne des Art. 112a (2) d) EPÜ gelten. Die Antragstellerin hatte sich aber weder auf das Übergehen eines Antrags auf mündliche Verhandlung (R. 104 a) EPÜ) noch eines sonstigen relevanten Antrags im Verfahren (R. 104 b) EPÜ) berufen. Dementsprechend betrachtete die GBK den Überprüfungsantrag bezüglich dieser geltend gemachten Verfahrensmängel als offensichtlich unbegründet.
Im Rahmen der Prüfung der Begründetheit des Überprüfungsantrags im Hinblick auf die geltend gemachten Verfahrensmängel nach Art. 112a (2) c) EPÜ befasste sich die GBK mit den beanstandeten Verstößen gegen Art. 113 (1) EPÜ im Zusammenhang mit der angekündigten mündlichen Verhandlung in Präsenz und derer tatsächlicher Durchführung als Videokonferenz. Dabei betonte die GBK unter anderem Folgendes:
In G 1/21 hat die GBK entschieden, dass die Durchführung einer mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz grundsätzlich mit dem Recht auf rechtliches Gehör vereinbar ist, und in R 12/22 hat die GBK das ausführlich dargestellt. Im vorliegenden Fall hatte die Antragstellerin sich darauf beschränkt zu rügen, die im Fall G 1/21 gesetzten, sehr engen Voraussetzungen für die Durchführung einer mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz hätten nicht vorgelegen. Sie hatte keine konkreten Umstände behauptet, wodurch ihr die Ausübung ihres Rechts auf rechtliches Gehör im Beschwerdeverfahren verweigert wurde. Für die GBK waren auch keine derartigen Umstände ersichtlich. Eine allgemeine Beanstandung zu Beginn der Verhandlung, die Voraussetzungen für die Durchführung der mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz seien nicht gegeben, genügt aus den vorgenannten Gründen (wonach eine mündliche Verhandlung in Form einer Videokonferenz grundsätzlich mit dem Recht auf rechtliches Gehör vereinbar ist) nicht. Damit liegt in der Durchführung der mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz offensichtlich kein Gehörsverstoß.
Darüber hinaus befand die GBK, dass anders als im Falle der Ermessensausübung beim Thema Zulassung, eine unzutreffende Ermessensausübung zugunsten der Durchführung einer mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz mangels Einfluss auf das Recht auf rechtliches Gehör keinen Verstoß gegen dieses Recht begründen kann, wenn – wie hier – ein konkreter Mangel der Videokonferenz während derselben nicht behauptet worden war. Die Beteiligten waren im Übrigen zur Frage der Durchführung der mündlichen Verhandlung als Videokonferenz gehört worden, so dass auch insofern kein Gehörsverstoß vorlag.
In Bezug auf die durch die Antragstellerin geltend gemachten Mängel in der Begründung der zu überprüfenden Entscheidung verwies die GBK auf die in R 3/15, R 8/15, R 8/19, R 10/20 und R 12/22 formulierten relevanten Grundprinzipien. Sie erinnerte unter anderem daran, dass eine widersprüchliche Begründung nur dann beanstandet werden kann, wenn die Widersprüche gleichbedeutend damit sind, dass die Kammer das Vorbringen in den Entscheidungsgründen nicht behandelt und dieses objektiv betrachtet entscheidend für den Ausgang des Falles war. Ebenso wie die objektiv entscheidende Bedeutung für den Ausgang des Falles sich aufdrängen muss, muss sich auch aufdrängen, dass die widersprüchliche Begründung gleichbedeutend ist mit einer Nicht-Begründung, indem sie beispielsweise völlig konfus ist (R 12/22).
Zum Argument der Antragstellerin, die Begründungsmängel seien für den Fachmann augenfällig, befand die GBK, dass es sich bei der relevanten Person, der eklatante Begründungsmängel ins Auge springen müssen, um den Durchschnittsleser und nicht den Fachmann handelt.
Der Antrag auf Überprüfung wurde teilweise als offensichtlich unzulässig und im Übrigen als offensichtlich unbegründet verworfen.