T 2726/17 - Filing the notice of appeal with web-form filing

Key points

• The applicant filed a notice of appeal using web-form filing.
• "According to Article 2 of the Decision of the President of the European Patent Office of 10 September 2014 (OJ EPO 2014, A98, "Decision") the filing of appeal documents via the EPO web-form filing service is not permitted, the consequence being that such documents are deemed not to have been received, see Article 2(2) of the Decision. Pursuant to the last sentence of Article 2(2) of the Decision, the sender of such web-form filed documents, if identifiable, will be notified without delay of this deemed non-receipt."
• However, not all is lost.
• " The sender of the notice of appeal was identifiable. Between the actual filing of the notice of appeal on 13 September 2017 and the final date of the time limit for filing the notice of appeal (6 October 2017) there was sufficient time for the EPO to notice the irregularity in the filing of the notice of appeal, to inform the appellant thereof and for the appellant to resubmit the notice of appeal by accepted means. It appears from the file that no such notification was issued. The appellant has confirmed this in its letter dated 4 January 2018."
• "In the light of the above, the Board, in accordance with the principles of legitimate expectations and of good faith (see, for instance, T 14/89, OJ 1990, 432, headnote), considers the notice of appeal as having been duly received."
• As a comment, web-form filing could be used in September 2017 for giving debit orders (in general, i.e. in first-instance proceedings). The prohibition of giving debit orders by webform filing entered into force a few months later.
• "The grounds of appeal were filed on 9 November 2017 again using the EPO web-form filing service."
•  The Board does not comment expressly on why the statement of ground is considered to be validly filed. 

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump, as well as (an extract of) the text of the decision.

https://www.epo.org/law-practice/case-law-appeals/recent/t172726eu1.html

Notice of appeal received in due time

1. According to Article 2 of the Decision of the President of the European Patent Office of 10 September 2014 (OJ EPO 2014, A98, "Decision") the filing of appeal documents via the EPO web-form filing service is not permitted, the consequence being that such documents are deemed not to have been received, see Article 2(2) of the Decision. Pursuant to the last sentence of Article 2(2) of the Decision, the sender of such web-form filed documents, if identifiable, will be notified without delay of this deemed non-receipt.

2. The sender of the notice of appeal was identifiable. Between the actual filing of the notice of appeal on 13 September 2017 and the final date of the time limit for filing the notice of appeal (6 October 2017) there was sufficient time for the EPO to notice the irregularity in the filing of the notice of appeal, to inform the appellant thereof and for the appellant to resubmit the notice of appeal by accepted means. It appears from the file that no such notification was issued. The appellant has confirmed this in its letter dated 4 January 2018.

3. In the light of the above, the Board, in accordance with the principles of legitimate expectations and of good faith (see, for instance, T 14/89, OJ 1990, 432, headnote), considers the notice of appeal as having been duly received.