Pressure grows on EPO’s Administrative Council
The European Patent Office’s (EPO) supervisory body the Administrative Council (AC) has come under more pressure as external members of the Enlarged Board of Appeal gave their support to an internal letter calling on the office to limit president Benoît Battistelli’s power.
“We, as external members of the Enlarged Board ... wish to express our extreme concern at the action of the president of the EPO in imposing a house ban on a member of the board of appeals,” said the latest letter, sent on Tuesday (December 9).
In it, two external Enlarged Board members—Lord Justice Floyd, an English judge, and Robert van Peursem, the advocate general to the Dutch Supreme Court—said they agreed with the first letter. Their letter was later supported by six more European judges.
The first letter was sent on Monday to AC members ahead of its latest meeting, taking place today and yesterday, to complain about the recent ban. In the letter, the AC was asked to recognise that, despite board of appeal members not being above disciplinary proceedings, Battistelli does not have the authority to ban a member.
It called for “a clear limitation on the executive power” of the EPO.
The six judges who co-signed the second letter are Swede Per Carlson, president of the Market Court, Katherine Klett of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, Stelios Nathaniel, a judge at the Supreme Court of Cyprus, Henrik Rothe, chief justice at the Maritime & Commercial High Court in Denmark, Octvia Spineanu-Matei from Romania’s High Court of Cassation and Justice, and Finnish judge Ari Wiren.
News of the letters comes as an emergency board meeting featuring Battistelli and AC chair Jesper Kongstad was apparently called for at short notice this morning.
The Enlarged Board is independent from the EPO in its decision-making and is bound only by the European Patent Convention.
There are currently 28 technical boards of appeal, plus the Legal Board of Appeal, the Enlarged Board and the Disciplinary Board of Appeal.
