The Annual Report 2021 of the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office was made available earlier today.
The report shows that in line with previous years, appeals of oppositions lead to a different outcome than the first instance proceedings in more than 60% of cases (“Appeal successful in whole or in part”):
The number of new opposition appeal cases saw a notable rise (30%), particularly in the technical field of Chemistry (44% increase). 15 Petitions for Review were filed in 2021, a very slight increase from the previous year:
While the number of opposition appeal cases pending sees a 13% decrease, the report acknowledges there has been “no significant improvement in [the] timeliness”:
Finally, the figures also show that 76% of appeal hearings were held by videoconference in 2021.
The Board of Appeal announcement on the report can be found here
The full report and all available statistics can be found here
