Article 11

BOARDS OF APPEAL

Notice of the President of the Boards of Appeal dated 9 January 2025 concerning the extension of electronic notification via the EPO Mailbox to proceedings before the Enlarged Board of Appeal

With effect from 1 February 2025, the Boards of Appeal will begin to notify documents in proceedings before the Enlarged Board of Appeal electronically via the EPO Mailbox. Thus, all communications, summonses and decisions relating to proceedings before the Enlarged Board of Appeal will be notified electronically via the Mailbox, where the addressee has activated this service. A list of the relevant documents is available at epo.org/en/applying/myepo-services/interact (see "Features, benefits and legal information" for the "Full list of communications which will be notified electronically via the Mailbox").

With this notice the use of electronic notification of documents via the EPO Mailbox already provided for the appeal proceedings before the Technical Boards of Appeal and the Legal Board of Appeal is further extended (see Notice of the President of the Boards of Appeal dated 13 April 2021 concerning the extension of electronic notification via the EPO Mailbox to appeal proceedings in OJ EPO 2021, A37).

The EPO Mailbox, which is already in use for the electronic notification of a range of documents in proceedings before the EPO, clearly displays the type of document received by a party as well as its date of transmission and receipt. An integrated, configurable folder system facilitates file management.

An electronic document is deemed to be delivered to the addressee on the date it bears (Rule 127(2) EPC), as is the case for postal notification (Rule 126(2) EPC).

Details of how to request registration for the Mailbox and a tutorial on how to use it are available at epo.org/en/applying/myepo-services/get-access and at epo.org/en/applying/myepo-services/interact#Gettingstarted.

Carl JOSEFSSON

President of the Boards of Appeal