1.4. Relationship with the law of the European Union and with CJEU case law

In G 3/19 (OJ 2020, A119), the board concluded that the legally effective and binding interpretation of Union law, whether provisions of primary law, e.g. the treaties, or of secondary law, e.g. regulations and directives, lay within the exclusive competence of the CJEU. Irrespective of this, as an independent international organisation with its own autonomous legal order, the European Patent Organisation was not directly bound by Union law. It was therefore all the more true that a legally non-binding notice on the interpretation of the Biotech Directive issued by the EU Commission in reaction to decisions of the Enlarged Board on the interpretation of a provision of the EPC, i.e. Art. 53(b) EPC, did not form part of EPC law.

See also chapter III.H. "Interpretation of the EPC".