On 28 October 2021, the Enlarged Board of Appeal of the European
Patent Office issued the reasons for decision G 1/21 of 16 July
2021, in which it was ordered that “during a general
emergency impairing the parties' possibilities to attend
in-person oral proceedings at the EPO premises, the conduct of oral
proceedings before the boards of appeal in the form of a
videoconference is compatible with the EPC even if not all of the
parties to the proceedings have given their consent to the conduct
of oral proceedings in the form of a videoconference”.
The decision of 16 July 2021 came in for criticism for not
addressing a number of relevant aspects that were raised in the
referral to the Enlarged Board. Although the reasons for the
decision appears to shed some light on some of these aspects, the
deliberately narrow approach of the Enlarged Board has not allowed
to completely resolve the legal uncertainty that surrounds oral
proceedings by videoconference.
