Source: http://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2019/04/05/patentability-of-plants-epo-referral-of-decision-t106318-criticized/
Timestamp: 2019-04-25 22:31:55+00:00

Document:
In case T1063/18, an EPO Board of Appeal decided plants can be patented after all, despite attempts of the European Commission and the EPO Administrative Council to ensure they would nót be patentable. (full background of the case here and here).
Attentive observer wrote: ‘ (…) Where is the claimed legal uncertainty? In T 1063/18, the BA has considered that the amendment of R 28, which was carried out in the wake of an opinion of the EU Commission, not even a decision of the CJEU, was against the interpretation of the EPC by the EBA in decisions G 2/12 and G 3/12. A referral would only be legitimate if a different BA, or even the same BA, but in a different composition, would arrive at the opposite conclusion of T 1063/18. The possibility for the President of the EPO to refer questions to the EBA should not be misused for political reasons.
Epo stakeholder was the only one to show comprehension: ‘I understand the critical comments regarding the legality of a referral by the President of the EPO in this case and the concern about independence of the Boards of Appeal. However, independence should not be a synonym for autism. The Boards of Appeal should not ignore other legal components of the overall context such as the existence of statutory protection for plant varieties and the EU biotech directive.and take them into account as much as the case law of national courts.’ (more comments below this post).
(C) additional actions in pending appeal cases related to Rule 28(2) EPC.
‘CIPA’s position is that the above-mentioned conflict (between judicial interpretations of the EPC and Rule 28(2) EPC) should be solved in a lawful manner.
– undermine legal certainty, in particular legal certainty relating to the legitimate expectations of rights holders.
Our position is therefore that the only viable options at this time are as follows.
– Accept the current interpretation of Article 53(b) EPC (Option D).
– Amend EU law and then the EPC (Option E).
Before asking his lawyers to prepare a referral, he should read CIPA’s document.
The only correct way is to amend Art 53,b.
If the present president files a referral as he intends to, then he his definitely stepping in the foots steps of his predecessor who also wanted the EBA to decide according to his wishes and those of the AC.
This combined with the fact that he has not pushed aside the famous head of human (?) resources and her husband, shows that he is anything but willing to get the staff on his side.
After all, even members of the boards are staff of the EPO!
Why are those two still in place, but other BB’s minions pushed aside?
It is sad to see the EPO in the hands of pseudo managers, who do everything to drive it in the wall!
The referral does not (yet) appear in the register.
CIPA’s comments do not seem to have impressed the new president and his lawyers.
The referral is plainly not admissible, and a coarse attempt to twist the arm of the EBA.
Interesting reading ahead of us!
The President has published on the EPO.org website a short notice, that he has referred a few questions to the EBA on 5 April.
Alas, the referral is not online, only the decision T1063/18is linked.
This sounds as if he only wishes to know from the EBA if the new rules are valid at all, and therefore the corresponding Guideline passages….
That answer would be short.
Only Article 53 is valid, and Rules 27 and 28 in their version before 01 July 2017.
Will the EBA be consulted on all future decisions of the AC?
Is this an appeal (by any other name) of a BoA decision?
Is such a request allowed?
No, you have to see it positively. It is an appeal to reason. The President, in his great mansuetude, offers the Enlarged Board a second go to get it right.
The President can refer a question on a point of law to the EBA on which there are “different” decisions by two boards of appeal. The EBA’s answer will not change the outcome of T 1063/18.
There are no different decisions on whether present R. 28(2) conflicts with Art. 53(b) EPC. The referral might argue that T 1063/18 applies Art. 164(2) (a Rule may not conflict with an Article) differently from how other BoAs have applied it. No other decision applying R. 26-29 to interpret Art. 53 has found a conflict, even though those Rules were enacted to steer the interpretation of Art. 53.
I note your interesting suggestion that “The referral might argue that T 1063/18 applies Art. 164(2) (a Rule may not conflict with an Article) differently from how other BoAs have applied it”.
However, I think that this is as much of a legal dead-end for the referral as is the prospect of finding “different” decisions with respect to Art 53(b).
“the Administrative Council may not amend the Implementing Regulations in such a way that the effect of an amended Rule would be in conflict with the EPC itself”.
“The limits to the Administrative Council’s law-making powers by means of the Implementing Regulations can be inferred from Article 164(2) EPC”.
Thus, there are no “different” decisions regarding what happens when an EPC Rule is found to be irreconcilable with an EPC Article. All decisions point to the same conclusion, namely that the provisions of the EPC Article prevail.
With this in mind, the question(s) referred by the President should make very interesting reading indeed!
The questions are available now.
It is clear that Art. 164(2) sets a limit on what can be regulated in the Implementing Regulations. The question is where those limits lie. When does a Rule “conflict” with an Article? Point 2.2 of G 2/07 is quite interesting.
See also point VII.2(4) of G 2/12. Or just go through the whole part VII, in particular VII.2 and VII.4, and try to see what the result would have been if R. 28(2) had already existed.
However justified your anger at the past and present presidents and the AC may be, it should not be a tree that hides the forest. The forest is the very complex and politically-charged situation regarding IP rights on plants – esp. interaction between patents and plant variety protection, farmers rights to seeds, protection of biodiversity.
Another concern as far as I am concerned is that the likely outcome, i.e. the Enlarged Board of Appeal rejecting the referral, and I agree there are solid legal reasons for that, may turn out to be a Pyrrhic victory from a political standpoint. I mean that it could be used by anti-patent activists to portray the Boards as serving the interests of the agribusiness giants. This would harmful to the public perception of their independence. And I fear this could extend to the EPO at large.
If I understand correctly, you are implying that the only legally justified conclusion (ie inadmissibility) the EBA can reach with respect to the referral would – from a PR perspective – look “bad”, and as if the EBA were somehow in the pocket of big (agri)business.
That the anti-patent lobby would try to portray the outcome this way is quite likely. But does that really mean that the EBA should reach a different conclusion? Reaching a different conclusion would mean that the EBA had ACTUALLY lost its independence. That would be far worse than the situation where a small minority of the public holds the inaccurate and unjustifiable PERCEPTION the EBA is not quite independent enough.
None of this drama is necessary. The CIPA position paper points to two options (E and F) that could LAWFULLY achieve the stated objective of “the Contracting States, the user community and representatives of civil society”. The fact that neither the AC nor the EPO President has even CONTEMPLATED those options is deeply worrying, especially now that the ruling in T1063/18 makes it impossible to maintain the pretence that the Interpretative Notice issued by the European Commission can somehow support a lawful amendment or reinterpretation of the EPC.
Pressing ahead regardless just makes it plain that the AC and the President are placing political sensitivities ahead of compliance with the law. That is a shameful and unsustainable course of action that could have far-reaching consequences not just for those attempting to subvert the rule of law but also for the long-term viability of the EPO. Whilst that might suit certain anti-patent lobbyists, it remains a mystery to me why neither the AC nor the President can see the writing on the wall.
Whether we like or not the decisions G 2/12 and G 3/12 is beside the point. It is also not a question to support the agribusiness giants. The EBA has given its interpretation of Art 53, b) and it should be respected. There is not a tree which hides the forest, there is a legal mechanism which is misused presently, as it has been misused in the past! No more, no less.
There is a simple way to come out of the problem, that is to amend Art 53, b). Any other way is doomed to fail.
That law has to adapt to societal changes is not at stake. Every sound person can agree to this, but if a different interpretation is wished, then change the law.
It cannot be that an administrative decision by a body lacking any popular legitimation, decides how the EPC is to be interpreted!
In my view, there is one positive side to this strange referral. It leaves no doubt that Mr Campinos pursues the aggressive approach of his predecessor towards the Boards of appeal. There is the same disdain for the separation of powers and the same will to marginalize the boards. Whatever the Enlarged Board will decide, the damage done is considerable. If the Enlarged Board accepts to bow down before the President, it will have lost its credibility. And if it dismisses the referral, this will infuriate even more the AC and the President, with more punitive action to be expected. It would have been so much wiser to let the Boards do their job and change the law, if need be. But then, if alpha-males were capable of wisdom, the face of the earth would be different, wouldn’t it?
Well, It also shows Mr. Campinos is not willing to oblige with the EPC either.
Article 4a EPC would be a perfect start to adress this issue.
But neither this management nor the previous management, nor the allegedly supervising Administrative Council, wish to bring those who supervise the supervisors into play.
Therefore, the EPC is ignored, and will continue to be ignored.
I wonder if the EBA at one point will even state that any amendments to the EPC and its Implementing Regulations, RFees, … are not valid, because Article 4a EPC has not been called once, and therefore the legitimacy of any decision made by the President and the AC (e.g. RFee increases, changes of Rules, changes in the Guidelines, Service Regulations, Extension Agreements, Validation Agreements, …), are not valid if made after 13 December 2012.
This is not an outcome anyone wishes to come.
The President of the EPO justifies his contested referral by “concerns expressed by the Contracting States, the user community and representatives of civil society who are worried about legal uncertainty resulting from decision T 1063/18”.
This seems to be less than half the truth. T 1063/18 shed a light on an inconsistency in law created by the legislator. Following the creation of the European patent system, national substantive patent law was harmonized with the provisions of the EPC in order to arrive at a uniform application of patentability criteria by the EPO and the national authorities. However, some contracting states (NL, followed by FR, DE and IT) found it necessary to amend their patent laws following public criticism on patents on plant inventions, expressly excluding patent as products of essentially biological processes from patent protection. Since then, the legal requirements for patents in the contracting states have been different and it should be no surprise that different legal provisions are interpreted differently. Instead of initiating a process for amending the EPC, the EU Commission tried to urge the responsible authorities to interpret the EPC in a way diverging from the relevant decisions of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (Broccoli II and Tomatoes II) which was a much critized initiative. Now, the President follows this course of action with the approval of the Administrative Council. Since the grounds for the referral are not yet public, observers are still keen to learn which divergency in the case law of the Boards, necessary for the referral under Article 112 (1) EPC, is alleged to exist.
In the present discussion, sometimes the impression is created that the Boards tend to extend the scope of patentability in the EPO’s interest. Broccoli I and II prove the contrary. In these decisions, the Enlarged Board interpreted the exclusion of essentially biological processes for the production of plants much broader than Rule 26 (5) EPC seen in isolation, corresponding to Art. 2 (2) of the Biotech Directive, would have allowed it, by concluding that not just any kind of human intervention can suffice to make a plant invention escape the exclusion. In the Broccoli and Tomato cases, the decisive criterion was to respect the prevailing force of the Convention over its Implementing Regulations.
Even though I am transparent with my interests as shown by my pseudo, I am first of all a European patent attorney and therefore a lawyer who considers that the principles of democracy shall not be disregarded for political reasons. These principles of democracy as they have shaped the EPC are that the president of the EPO and the AC do NOT have legislative power. The legislative power lies in other hands: it could be the AC if it would convoque a Diplomatic Conference, or it would have to be the EU institutions issuing a new law (i.e. a new Directive or Regulation, not a “Notice”), or the CJEU. Only those institutions can adapt the laws to the societal and political will.
For the safeguarding of those principles, the EBA shall reject the questions referred by the President. The political turmoil surrounding this topic shall not influence its role of applying the principles set by our democratic laws.
A stay of proceedings ex officio has been announced for those cases where the outcome will entirely rely on the outcome of the referred question(s).
Not entirely suprising, but now it is official.

References: Art 53
 Art. 53
 Art. 164
 Art. 53
 Art. 53
 Art. 164
 Art 53
 Art. 164
 Art 53
 Art 53
 Art. 2