T 0867/24 - A very lengthy reply

Key points

• The Board: "The respondent's [opponent's] reply extends over 143 pages, is overly repetitive, poorly structured, and burdened with irrelevant or tangential arguments."
• "The respondent's submissions restate at length the EPC legal standards and basic case law principles, in several instances without a clear link to the actual discussion of the case at hand, and accumulate numerous citations of Board of Appeal decisions in an unspecific way " 
• "Objections of lack of novelty and inventive step in view of D28, D19 and D21 are unnecessarily duplicated by the citation of family members (respectively D30/D2, D1 and D5) with the same relevant content"
• "Regarding inventive step, the respondent's plethoric case includes objections combining D13 (or D12a, D12b, D12c) with any of D46, D28, D2, D5, D10, D16, D23, D39a-e, D40a-f, D17, D32, D19, D9, D41, D37, D34, D7 and D35 (see pages 72-78 of the reply). Page 79 adds or repeats objections combining D12a, D12b, D12c, D13 or D44a/D44b with D19/D1, D21/D5, D10, D16 and D22. Further objections are raised: - starting from D34, D35 or D46 in combination with D7, D8, D36 and D41, or - starting from D46, D35, D44a/D44b, D28, D19, D21, D10, D31 in combination with any of ... 
• "Article 12(5) RPBA provides that the Board has discretion not to admit any part of a submission by a party which does not meet the requirements of Article 12(3) RPBA.
• ... in the case where the submission lacks clarity and conciseness to the point that the Board and the other party or parties cannot assess its merits without undue burden, the discretionary power applies generally to all parts of the submission affected by the lack of clarity and conciseness. It is in such circumstances not for the Board or for the opposing party or parties to identify, within the host of objections raised with varying levels of substantiation, which objections are the most compelling and should be given emphasis."

•   For the above reasons, the Board did not admit the objections of lack of inventive step starting from any documents other than D13 (and D12a/D12b/D12c), or involving combinations with documents other than D22, D8, D19/D1, D21/D5 or D10."

• Did the opponent/respondent lose the appeal?  No.

• "The subject-matter of the main request does not involve an inventive step."

• The appeal of the proprietor is dismissed. 

   

• The point about the admissibility of the other attacks is, hence, obiter.  

•  T 0867/24 - A very lengthy reply 

EPO 

The link to the decision is provided after the jump.

https://www.epo.org/en/boards-of-appeal/decisions/t240867eu1