T 1503/17 - Other decisions not binding

 Key points

• If, say, the patent in the parent case is revoked due to legal problems with the priority claim, can you relitigate the matter in a divisional application?
• The present Board, in an unrelated case, has to decide on the admissibility of a late-filed request.
• “At the oral proceedings before the Board the appellant-opponent [sic, I think patentee was intended] also referred to an interpretation (of "endless belt") in an (unidentified) decision by this Board, in a related case, as justifying the late filing. Leaving aside the fact that the Board is in any case not bound by a decision in a different (even if related) case, Art 23(3) EPC, the Board is unable to see how claim interpretation in another case can have any bearing on the justification for a late filing in the present appeal, since they are distinct and independent proceedings.”

T 1503/17 

https://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/recent/t171503eu1.html

"At the oral proceedings before the Board the appellant-opponent also referred to an interpretation (of "endless belt") in an (unidentified) decision by this Board, in a related case, as justifying the late filing. Leaving aside the fact that the Board is in any case not bound by a decision in a different (even if related) case, Art 23(3) EPC, the Board is unable to see how claim interpretation in another case can have any bearing on the justification for a late filing in the present appeal, since they are distinct and independent proceedings."