In a decision dated 28 January 2022, EPO Board of Appeal 3.3.04 has referred questions to the EPO Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBA) on entitlement to priority. The referrals are pending under G1/22 and G2/22.
The questions are as follows:
- Does the EPC confer jurisdiction on the EPO to determine whether a party validly claims to be a successor in title as referred to in Article 87(1)(b) EPC?
- If question I is answered in the affirmative
Can a party B validly rely on the priority right claimed in a PCT-application for the purpose of claiming priority rights under Article 87(1) EPC
in the case where
- a PCT-application designates party A as applicant for the US only and party B as applicant for other designated States, including regional European patent protection and
- the PCT-application claims priority from an earlier patent application that designates party A as the applicant and
- the priority claimed in the PCT-application is in compliance with Article 4 of the Paris Convention?
The EPO announcement can be found here
The referring decision of the Board of Appeal can be found here
