A Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office has refused to reinstate a patent application after the professional representative missed a deadline for appealing against a rejection.
Article 122 of the European Patent Convention (EPC) requires Due Care, and the board considered that this had not been shown, as the system used by the attorney firm handling the case did not have an independent means of cross-checking that due dates had been met.
The Board found that the representative had not adequately supervised his secretary, who was responsible for checking the dates, even though she was experienced and had previously worked for another partner in the firm. Case: T 1465/07, 9 May 2008.
the ruling is interesting, in that in Israel, the standard required for reinstating missed PCT deadlines is also due care, and the Israel Patent Office rulings are similar. This is what we pay insurance for and lose sleep over…
