Petitions for review of EPO Appeal Board decisions by the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal: part III

The author Julian Cockbain is a Consultant European Patent Attorney based in Oxford, UK. This article In two earlier articles in this journal 1,2 the author has provided guidance to parties to appeals before the European Patent Office (EPO) as to how to avoid having to have recourse to the petition 3 route should they fail on appeal and how to maximize their chances of success if a petition becomes necessary. To a large extent, the conclusion has been that parties should prepare fully for oral proceedings and should ensure that, at oral proceedings, their requests are made absolutely clear to the Appeal Board. That advice is unchanged.