23rd May 2023
A recent decision, T 1158/20, of the EPO’s Technical Board of Appeal tells us that hosting oral proceedings by videoconference can be, for some cases, an equivalent alternative to in-person oral proceedings.
18th Apr 2023
Almost all EPO opposition hearings are now conducted by videoconference (VICO). VICO opposition hearings have been very successful and are no doubt here to stay. In general, the EPO will insist that opposition hearings are carried out by VICO unless there are exceptional reasons for an in-person hearing. Only two VICO hearings have been changed from VICO to be in-person in the last three years.
14th Mar 2023
In November last year, the European Patent Office (EPO) published a decision to grant a tenth petition for review (see R 3/22). This brings the total success rate to 5.2%, with 10 of 194 petitions resulting in the decision under review being set aside.
20th Oct 2022
A recent case in which we were involved highlighted a long standing problem with inter partes proceedings before at the European Patent Office (EPO). Throughout a hearing, the Chairperson of the Opposition Division (“the OD”) or Technical Boards of Appeal (“the TBA”) is not required to give any guidance on how they reached a conclusion […]
21st Jul 2022
On the 8th July 2022, the Administrative Committee of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) held their second meeting. A number of changes have been proposed (all of which are no doubt very important), but one notable change that does jump out is an amendment to Rule 112 – Conduct of the oral hearing.
4th Jul 2022
During EPO oppositions there is a need to be clear about the differences between evidence, facts, objections and arguments in proceedings before the EPO and the EPO Boards of Appeal.
21st Apr 2022
The EPO has recently extended the pilot program for oral proceedings by videoconference (VICO) before opposition divisions until 31 December 2022. This means that opposition oral proceedings will continue to be held by VICO until the end of this year, unless there are serious reasons not to.
28th Oct 2021
The EPO’s Enlarged Board of Appeal has today (28 October 2021) formally issued its written decision on case G1/21 on whether oral proceedings can be held by video conference without the parties’ consent.