Some remarks about the speed of appeal cases

Key points

• Justice delayed is justice denied, especially in the context of time-limited IP rights such as patents. Moreover, patents are forward-looking rights in that they seek to protect technologies that are finalized (often) and commercialized after the application's filing date, perhaps even more than copyrights or trademarks.  
• First, the Annual Report 2022; "in 2022 the Boards of Appeal settled a record number of 3 576 cases and reduced the number of pending cases to 6 216. The number of pending cases that are older than 30 months declined by 26.1% compared to 2021."
• https://link.epo.org/web/Annual%20Report%20BoA%202022_EN_final_rev_230609.pdf 
• Productivity increased from 19 cases per technical member per year to a stable 24 cases in 2021 and 2022.
• 90% of the cases were settled in 56 months (note that this may be a figure that looks backwards, i.e. the prediction could be that 90% of the cases filed in 2022 will be decided in fewer than 56 months.
• 30% of the stock is older than 30 months.
• The oldest case decided in 2023 was T 2158/14. Appeal against the refusal of an application from 2009. The first oral proceedings were scheduled in April 2020 and were (obviously) cancelled. The oral proceedings were newly scheduled for October 2021. The applicant then withdrew the request for oral proceedings and filed amended claims in March 2021. I'm not sure what happened, but the written decision was issued in February 2023, dismissing the appeal. To be clear, my view is that the silence of the Board from 2014 to 2019 was undesirable and should not happen anymore (assuming that no interruption or stay was in place). Systems should be in place (now) to monitor. 
• One other case, T 2175/15: three partiality objections.
• Six cases from 2016, 25 cases from 2017. This seems like the regular "end of the tail" stuff. Hopefully, the BoA President can make the tail a bit shorter. 
• From 2018: 102 cases, 2019: 366 cases, 2020: 480 cases, 2021: 561 cases, 2022: 164 cases.
• On the other side, 3 cases were filed in 2023 and decided in 2023 by the Technical Boards with a decision on patentability. The fastest seems to be T 0383/23 in an opposition appeal case. Statement of Grounds 27.04.2023, no reply filed by the patentee, patent revoked by the Board by a decision issued on 11.10.2023. 
• Other good news: Since the beginning of 2024, many boards have clearly been working hard to meet the three-month time limit for putting the decision in writing, with a lot of decisions being issued (just) in time. 
• In that sense, a remainder from the past were the 7 decisions that were taken in 2021 but with the written decision issued only in 2023.  
• See e.g. decision T 0229/18, taken on 07.10.2021 and issued in writing on 06.12.2023 (also: application filed in 2008, and summons for the OD after remittal to be held in March 2024 because the parties are arguing about the adaption fo the description (perhaps the Boards should not normally remit the case to the OD for the adaption of the description, incidentally). 
• See e.g also T 0862/17 taken on 05.05.2021 and issued in August 2023, with no Art. 15(9)RPBA  communication informing the parties about the delay visible in the file.  
• Finally, a rather "unhappy" list is the list of pending petitions for review. R 8/19 is still pending at the time of writing, with oral proceedings scheduled for 08.04.2024. To cite MR/2/00, Art. 112a, note 14: "The possibility of filing a petition for review must not cause long-lasting legal uncertainty for third parties" (arguably, the next sentence is about the revival of a patent or application, so perhaps there is less urgency for petitions for review filed by an opponent, as R 4/19 indeed is; but in pending case R 1/20 the petition is filed by the proprietor and no action is visible in the online file ever since May 2020). The Annual Report of the Boards seems to contain no data about the pendency of petitions for review.