The Enlarged Board of Appeal has issued a preliminary and
non-binding opinion for the referrals G1/22 and G2/22, which ask
(1) whether the EPO has jurisdiction to determine whether a party
validly claims priority as successor in title, and (2) in
particular for US-derived PCT applications where the applicant for
the US is the inventor, the applicant for elsewhere is not the
inventor, and the applicant for the priority application is the
inventor.
The Enlarged Board has construed the first question broadly, to
encompass all situations where the application claiming priority is
not clearly identical with the applicant of the priority
application.The preliminary opinion does not lean
towards an answer on question 1 and instead highlights that there
is no consensus amongst submissions received on this point: one
side argues that the EPO has, can and should routinely assess
priority; the other side argues that this is strictly a matter for
civil law of national
