Based on Google Analytics, the most popular posts are about difficult topics:
T 205/14 - about 800 views (clicking through) - about a missing assignment of priority rights, and the preliminary question of the applicable law. One of my favourite topics as well. Though actually, I think the Board could better have given a rule other than the applicable law being "the law governing the legal relationship between the transferor and the transferee of the right of priority".
T 0239/16: "Clinical trial document kills patent" (13.04.2018). The title says it all.
T 809/12 - "Result to be achieved" and also T 2067/12 about the same topic. Seems those two posts show up quite high if you search on Google for "result to be achieved". Apparently, the phrase is used only by the EPO according to Google.
The topic label with the most posts is "procedural violation" which is a case of selection bias - I try to post all decisions wherein a substantial procedural violation is found by the Board.
For me, the most difficult case to summarize was T0404/13 - the validity of a disclaimer depended on whether another patent application was a prior right under Art.54(3), which in turn depended on the validity of the priority, which required that the priority application was the first filing, which in turn depended on the question of whether there was a valid transfer of priority of a still earlier filing, which in turn depended not so much on the existence of the transfer but on the effective date. Simple, isn't it?
One of the most surprising cases was T 1872/14: you can actually use a disclaimer to make a claim novel over an Art. 54(2) (!) prior art document, though the case should perhaps be reviewed carefully for consistency with G1/15.
I wish the Boards of course many peaceful and productive years to come.
As a suggestion for opposition appeals, I hope that case management conferences will be introduced in the near future. Perhaps the Boards could find a way to dispose of inadmissible auxiliary requests (and documents, attacks) earlier in the proceedings. The current situation is that parties must still spend time and money on substantive rebuttals to inadmissible requests (documents, attacks), and also submit those rebuttals to the Board in addition to the debate on admissibility, thereby causing a lot of unnecessary work for parties and the Boards.
As a suggestion for examination appeals, the problem appears to be mostly the backlog in certain technical fields. I don't really have personal experience with it, but from the Board's written decision the majority of examination appeals does not seem terribly complex cases. Perhaps the very backlog, i.e. the additional 4-5 years pendency may have been the very reason for filing the appeal in the first place. Perhaps the arrangement of the oral proceedings will be reviewed in the future: scheduling 60 minutes for the oral proceedings by default may be enough (in the majority of the cases, the applicants don't show up at all, it seems). Perhaps, the decision can be issued in writing rather than during the oral proceedings. Furthermore, possibly a solution can be found in temporarily dealing with new examination appeals first: (credibly) announcing that new appeals will be decided within 12 months may by itself already result in a significant drop in the number of incoming examination appeals.
However, I realize that every patent attorney will have a different proposal for speeding up the appeal proceedings. They will also try to benefit from the delays when it suits their client's interests.
As a suggestion for examination appeals, the problem appears to be mostly the backlog in certain technical fields. I don't really have personal experience with it, but from the Board's written decision the majority of examination appeals does not seem terribly complex cases. Perhaps the very backlog, i.e. the additional 4-5 years pendency may have been the very reason for filing the appeal in the first place. Perhaps the arrangement of the oral proceedings will be reviewed in the future: scheduling 60 minutes for the oral proceedings by default may be enough (in the majority of the cases, the applicants don't show up at all, it seems). Perhaps, the decision can be issued in writing rather than during the oral proceedings. Furthermore, possibly a solution can be found in temporarily dealing with new examination appeals first: (credibly) announcing that new appeals will be decided within 12 months may by itself already result in a significant drop in the number of incoming examination appeals.
However, I realize that every patent attorney will have a different proposal for speeding up the appeal proceedings. They will also try to benefit from the delays when it suits their client's interests.
Finally, it's worth emphasizing that the legitimacy of the Board depends only in part on the procedural aspects of the appeal decisions. Much more important is that the decisions of the Boards are correct about the underlying technologies of the inventions and that inventors, scientists and engineers who are involved in appeal procedures have no reason to doubt the technical competency of the Board - perhaps are even impressed by it. In the end, that is both the most important and the most difficult part of the job of the Boards. It's also an aspect that is beyond the scope of this blog (i.e. I don't discuss highly technical decisions like recent T 2192/13 though such decisions are at the core of the Board's work).
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