Article 71

BOARDS OF APPEAL

Communication from the Enlarged Board of Appeal concerning case G 1/18

In accordance with Article 112(1)(b) EPC, the President of the European Patent Office has referred the following point of law to the Enlarged Board of Appeal:

If notice of appeal is filed and/or the appeal fee1 is paid after expiry of the two-month time limit under Article 108 EPC, is the appeal inadmissible or is it deemed not to have been filed, and must the appeal fee be reimbursed?

The text of the referral in French is available on the EPO website under www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/eba/pending.html.

The Enlarged Board of Appeal considering the referral will be composed as follows: C. Josefsson (Chairman), I. Beckedorf, F. Blumer, G. Eliasson, S. Granata, W. Sieber, G. Weiss.

Third parties are hereby given the opportunity to file written statements in accordance with Article 10 of the Rules of Procedure of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (OJ EPO 2015, A35) in one of the official languages of the EPO (English, French or German).

To ensure that any such statements can be given due consideration they should be filed by the end of November with the Registry of the Enlarged Board of Appeal, quoting case number G 1/18, and should be marked for the attention of Mr Wiek Crasborn ([email protected]).