4.3. Article 112a(2)(c) EPC – alleged fundamental violation of Article 113 EPC
4.3.21 Successful petitions under Article 112a(2)(c) EPC
In R 7/09 the petition was allowed, as the EPO was not able to establish delivery of the opponent's statement of grounds of appeal to the patentee and subsequent petitioner. The petitioner had therefore been unaware of the grounds on which the decision of the board of appeal revoking its patent was based. The fact that the statement of grounds became available to the public and, thus, also to the petitioner by way of electronic file inspection had no bearing on the right of parties to be individually and specifically informed by the EPO.
Similarly, in R 4/17 the petitioner argued that it had no record of ever having received the notice of appeal or statement of grounds for appeal and that it had no knowledge of the existence of the appeal until it received the decision in the appeal case. The EPO was not able to establish that the critical communications had reached their destination, as required under R. 126(2) EPC. The Enlarged Board held that parties must be able to rely on the EPO complying with the relevant provisions of the EPC and, at least for the purposes of Art. 113(1) EPC, they and their representatives have no duty to monitor the proceedings themselves by regularly inspecting the electronic file. It cannot be expected that the respondent should prove a negative, i.e. the non-receipt of a letter, or provide a plausible explanation for non-receipt (see also in this chapter V.B.3.13. "Burden of proof").
In the inter partes proceedings under review in R 3/10 the Chair had stated after the parties' submissions on novelty "that the Board will decide on patentability". The board then closed the debate and held that the main request was novel but lacked an inventive step. According to the Enlarged Board, the term "patentability" covered a variety of potential objections and the Chair could not have meant to address all of them. Thus, the petitioner had no reason to assume that the board's decision would address more than what had been previously discussed, i.e. novelty. As the petitioner had not been given the opportunity to comment on inventive step, the Enlarged Board allowed the petition (see also chapter III.B.2.6.1 "Decision could not be expected").
In the ex parte proceedings under review in R 15/11 the board had held that the request did not comply with the requirements of Art. 84 EPC. According to the Enlarged Board, there was no explicit or implicit indication in the file of the appeal procedure from which it could be derived that a possible lack of clarity was at any time discussed with the petitioner or that at least an objection was raised in this respect. The Enlarged Board allowed the petition and held that a minimum prerequisite for an opportunity to comment on a specific ground (here: Art. 84 EPC) was that the petitioner was aware or could have been aware that compliance with that ground was at issue. A statement in the communication concerning a potential discussion of, inter alia, Art. 84 EPC did not amount to a specific objection regarding the request at issue.
In the inter partes proceedings under review in R 16/13 the petitioner had filed a document with comparative test results. In its written decision, the board of appeal raised an issue that had not been raised in the proceedings and it had not been possible for the petitioner to infer the board's reasoning, on the basis of its own expertise, from the way the proceedings developed. The Enlarged Board allowed the petition, stating that the right to be heard is violated when a board gives, ex officio, reasons in its decision without having given the party adversely affected an opportunity to comment on these reasons or to submit new requests. In T 1378/11 the board stated that R 16/13 could not be understood to give the parties the right to find out from the deciding body how it assesses the facts and arguments on which its decision is likely to be based.
In the inter partes proceedings under review in R 2/14 of 22 April 2016 date: 2016-04-22, the Enlarged Board noted that the board's decisive line of argument had concerned the aspect of modifying the inactive SEQ ID NO: 4 by means of recloning the desaturase, starting from E. gracilis. The reasons given by the board were limited in so far as, after establishing the need for recloning, it had immediately stated its conclusion that, although the skilled person could in fact perform each of the necessary steps, combining those steps created an undue burden for them. The other two alternative approaches relied upon by the petitioner had not been discussed at all by the board; they had merely been referred to as suffering from the same negative conclusion. The board had mentioned neither facts nor a sequence of arguments that had led it to this conclusion. Therefore, it could not be understood and reproduced by the affected party. The Enlarged Board allowed the petition.
In R 3/15 the Enlarged Board set aside the inter partes decision under review on account of a breach of the right to be heard. The board had reformulated the problem based on a new interpretation of claim 1, presented for the first time in the written reasons for its decision, that none of the parties had previously made a case for, either in the opposition or the appeal proceedings. It was apparent from the parties' submissions that not only the appellant but also the respondents had assumed a different interpretation of claim 1 in the discussion on feature (ii). Thus the appellant had been surprised by the board's new line of argument on inventive step in its written decision, on which it had not had an opportunity to comment. That was a breach of the right to be heard (Art. 113 EPC).
In R 5/19 the Enlarged Board decided that the opponent's petition for review based on a violation of the right to be heard (reason for the decision surprising) under Art. 113(1) EPC was well-founded. The opponent had based the request for review, inter alia, on a fundamental violation of the right to be heard, which had resulted from the fact that the board of appeal had, without prior notice, surprisingly disregarded all the inventive-step attacks raised in writing in the statement of grounds of appeal. According to the decision under review, the written arguments had not been taken into account because the problem-solution approach had not been used. Thus, the decision had been based on a ground on which the opponent had not been able to comment before taking note of it.
- R 0011/23
In R 11/23 the petition was based on Art. 112a(2)(c) EPC, i.e. the fundamental violation of Art. 113(1) EPC. It was alleged that the clarity objection against auxiliary request 8, which had led to the board's finding that said request had been unallowable, had never been discussed, neither in the written nor in the oral proceedings, but had been brought forward only in the board's written decision..
Specifically, the petitioner argued that there had been two distinct clarity objections against claim 1 of auxiliary request 8: the alleged lack of clarity regarding what "maintaining currents in an allowable range" meant (the "allowable current range objection") and the alleged lack of information on which components were to be protected by the protective circuit (the "unspecified components objection"). The petitioner acknowledged that it had been heard in the context of the "allowable current range objection" but it asserted that it had been confronted with the "unspecified components objection" only when reading the written decision.
The Enlarged Board held that it did not see any clear indication that the "unspecified components objection" had been raised implicitly, for example as an aspect of an overarching clarity objection..
The Enlarged Board agreed with the petitioner in that it was not sufficient for a relevant specific aspect such as the "unspecified components" to be covered or encompassed by a broader clarity objection that had been discussed if the parties had not been aware of the specific aspect during the discussion. In this context, opponent 2 had referred to paragraph [0018] of the patent which had been mentioned in point 7.4 of the decision under review. The Enlarged Board could not see that such a reference implied that the "unspecified components objection" had been discussed. Furthermore, it did not regard the wording of point 7.5 of said decision as evidence that the "unspecified components objection" had been discussed, because it was not clear whether the phrase "as the appellants and the infringer [sic] correctly argue" was linked to the "unspecified components objection".
According to the Enlarged Board, since it had no power or ability to investigate further whether other facts or indications might suggest that the petitioner could be aware that the board had had doubts about the specific aspect of clarity (namely, the "unspecified component" issue), it had to rely on the parties' submissions in this respect. In the absence of any such indication, it was not for the party alleging a breach of its right to be heard to prove that there had been no such facts or indications (see R 15/11). Any doubts remaining on whether a decision under review was based upon facts and considerations on which the parties had had an opportunity to comment must be solved to the affected party's benefit (see R 2/14).
For these reasons, the Enlarged Board concluded that the "unspecified components objection" had not been discussed during appeal proceedings and its use in the written decision had therefore come as a surprise to the petitioner.
As in the appeal case underlying R 2/14, a broader objection had been discussed during appeal proceedings in the present case but not the specific aspect encompassed by the broader objection that turned out to be decisive for the case. In such cases, the "grounds" as referred to in Art. 113(1) EPC may have a more specific meaning than a broader objection like "lack of clarity" or "insufficiency of disclosure". In the present case, it was irrelevant that the broader clarity objection had been discussed. The critical aspect, namely the question of which components needed to be protected, had not been discussed during the appeal proceedings and the board's conclusion on this aspect had come as a surprise to the petitioner.
The "unspecified components objection" which had not been discussed during the appeal proceedings eventually was the reason for the board's finding that the patent was invalid. The Enlarged Board concluded that a fundamental violation of Art. 113(1) EPC had occurred. The decision under review was thus set aside and the proceedings before a board reopened..
On the latter, the Enlarged Board, referring to Art. 112a(5) and R. 108(3) EPC, explained that the board responsible for the reopened proceedings was not automatically the board which had issued the decision underlying the review proceedings. Rather, the allocation of the reopened proceedings had to be determined in accordance with the business distribution scheme as applicable when the proceedings were reopened.
- R 0012/21
In R 12/21 prüfte die Große Beschwerdekammer (GBK), ob die Kammer entsprechend dem seitens der Antragstellerin geltend gemachten sechsten bis achten Verfahrensmangel gegen das Recht auf rechtliches Gehör verstoßen hatte (Art. 112a (2) c) i.V.m. Art. 113 (1) EPÜ). Diese Mängel betrafen die Nichtzulassung des Hilfsantrags. Die Nichtzulassung des Hilfsantrags wurde in der angefochtenen Entscheidung auf zwei Gründe kumulativ gestützt: Fehlen der Voraussetzungen von Art. 12 (2) VOBK 2007 und eine prima facie fehlende Neuheit des Gegenstands von Anspruch 1 des Hilfsantrags.
Die GBK merkte an, dass zur Frage der Zulassung neuen Vorbringens in einem Teil der Rechtsprechung der GBK zu Art. 112a EPÜ verlangt wird, dass der Beteiligte zu dessen Zulassung (lediglich) ausreichend zu hören ist, nach einem anderen Teil der Rechtsprechung ist darüber hinaus die Ausübung des Ermessens im Rahmen der Zulassung nicht nur auf Willkür, sondern auch auf offensichtliche Unrichtigkeit zu überprüfen (R 6/20). Der GBK zufolge stellte sich vorliegend bereits die Frage, ob die Antragstellerin ausreichend gehört worden war, und darüber hinaus ggf., ob die zutreffenden Rechtsgrundlagen für die Ausübung des Ermessens zu Grunde gelegt und das Ermessen damit nicht offensichtlich unrichtig angewandt worden war. Nur bei positiver Beantwortung beider Fragen könne der Überprüfungsantrag unbegründet sein.
Da die GBK die erste Frage negativ beantwortete und der Überprüfungsantrag aus diesem Grund bereits Erfolg hatte, kam es auf die zweite Frage nicht an. In der Entscheidung der GBK wurde daher lediglich die Frage des ausreichenden Gehörs der Antragstellerin im Hinblick auf die Nichtzulassung des Hilfsantrags vor dem Hintergrund der geltend gemachten fehlenden Möglichkeit, zur prima facie-Neuheit Stellung zu nehmen, erörtert. Den Vortrag der Antragstellerin verstand die GBK dahingehend, dass diese sich bei der Erörterung der Zulassung des Hilfsantrags 1 während der mündlichen Verhandlung nicht zum Aspekt, auf den sich die Kammer in der Entscheidungsbegründung stützte, hatte äußern dürfen, nämlich dazu ob der "hinzugefügte Schritt […] prima facie die Neuheit gegenüber D2 herstellt und damit dem Anspruch zu einer prima facie Gewährbarkeit als Zulassungskriterium unter Art. 13 (1) VOBK 2007 verhilft".
Wenn die Kammer, so die GBK, der Auffassung gewesen wäre, die technische Debatte zum hinzugefügten Merkmal in Anspruch 1 des Hilfsantrags sei bereits im Rahmen des Hauptantrags vollumfänglich geführt worden und eine weitere Debatte im Rahmen des Hilfsantrags überflüssig, hätte die Kammer die Patentinhaberin auf eben diese Auffassung hinweisen und ihr Gelegenheit zur Stellungnahme geben müssen. Dies folge bereits aus dem Wortlaut von Art. 113 (1) EPÜ, wonach Entscheidungen des EPA nur auf Gründe gestützt werden dürfen, zu denen die Beteiligten sich äußern konnten.
Die GBK kam zu dem Schluss, dass in Ermangelung des vorgenannten ausdrücklichen Ansprechens die Antragstellerin erst der schriftlichen Entscheidung entnehmen konnte, dass die Kammer die Nichtzulassung auch auf eine fehlende prima facie-Neuheit des Gegenstands von Anspruch 1 gestützt hatte. Daher sei der Patentinhaberin auch eine diesbezügliche Rüge nach R. 106 EPÜ nicht möglich gewesen. Sie sei damit daran gehindert gewesen, ihrer grundsätzlich bestehenden Pflicht nachzukommen, von sich aus im Verfahren ihre Interessen aktiv wahrzunehmen.
Im Umstand, dass die Kammer die prima facie-Neuheit des Gegenstands von Anspruch 1 des Hilfsantrags bei der Debatte über die Ausübung des Zulassungs-Ermessens im Rahmen von Art. 13 (1) VOBK 2007 nicht ausdrücklich angesprochen hatte und dazu nicht hatte vortragen lassen, sah die GBK einen schwerwiegenden Verstoß gegen das Recht auf rechtliches Gehör der Patentinhaberin (Art. 113 (1) EPÜ). Es könne nämlich nicht von vornherein ausgeschlossen werden, dass die Ermessensentscheidung im Falle eines Ansprechens und damit einhergehend der Gelegenheit zur Stellungnahme zur prima facie-Neuheit des Gegenstands von Anspruch 1 des Hilfsantrags anders ausgefallen gewesen wäre.