Le recours fait suite à la révocation du brevet suite à opposition. Autant lever tout mystère, le recours n'y fera rien et le brevet restera révoqué car toutes les requêtes présentées étaient contraires à l'art.123(2) (et ça, c'est mal).
La Chambre a tout de même décidé de revenir sur un point de la décision.
En opposition, l'opposant a fait appel à des témoins pour établir un usage public antérieur. La division d'opposition avait fixé au 3 mars 2010 la date de la procédure orale, et au 4 janvier 2010 le délai final pour les soumissions.
Le 4 janvier, dernier jour du délai donc, l'opposant a indiqué que des témoins allaient intervenir. Le 22 février, la Division d'Opposition a annulé la procédure orale, indiquant principalement qu'elle invitait l'opposant à fournir les noms et adresses des témoins (ils ont été fournis le 20 avril 2010).
Le breveté avait demandé une répartition différente des frais, justifiée par le report de la procédure orale qui n'était pas de son fait. Il a été débouté de sa demande par la Division d'Opposition au motif que (traduction libre) "Même si les témoins avaient été nommés dans la lettre du 04.01.2010, la Division d'Opposition aurait repoussé la procédure orale, car un délai d'au moins deux mois doit être observé entre la citation des témoins et la procédure orale (R.118(2) CBE)".
Et la Division d'Opposition de conclure "Therefore, there was no abuse of procedure of the Opponent".
Sur ce point, la Chambre s'oppose à l'opposition. En substance, elle montre que l'opposant a largement trainé pour produire les éléments responsables du report de la procédure orale et, qu'à ce titre, une répartition différente des coûts est justifiée.
D'une part, elle établit le lien entre l'appel à témoins et le report de la procédure orale :
3.3.3 When cancelling the oral proceedings by communication of 22 February 2010, the opposition division in substance referred only to the respondent's last submissions and invited the respondent to indicate the name(s) and address(es) of the witness(es).
It is already evident from the above that the purpose of the cancellation of the oral proceedings was to follow the respondent's submissions and its request for the taking of evidence concerning the alleged public prior use in question and to give the respondent the opportunity to provide the information necessary to enable witnesses to be correctly summoned. It was only then that the respondent filed the names and addresses of two witnesses leading the opposition division to issue the order to take evidence by hearing those two witnesses.
Consequently, the fact as referred to by the respondent, that the appellant itself had submitted new requests quite late in the appeal proceedings, i.e. on the same day as the respondent had submitted its (incomplete) offer of evidence, obviously was not the decisive factor for the opposition division when cancelling the oral proceedings.
La Chambre indique ensuite qu'une répartition différente des coûts se justifie si le comportement d'une partie induit chez l'autre partie des dépenses injustifiées, et qui auraient pu être évitées (les mises en évidence et les soulignés sont de ma part).
3.4.2 These criteria are met in the present case since the respondent introduced important evidence, i.e. a request for a witness hearing on the relevant alleged public prior use, at a late stage of the proceedings, namely only two months before the date of the scheduled oral proceedings, without cogent reasons for the delay and in particular without submitting all necessary information, i.e. the name(s) and address(es) of the witness(es) in question. The latter was only done after a further delay of one month.
Since the prior use in question was raised and the offer of witnesses was already made with the opposition, the respondent could have come forward with the above-mentioned supporting submissions and the specific mention of witnesses for the alleged public prior use already at an earlier stage of the opposition proceedings or, at least, directly after receiving the opposition division's summons and communication. The latter was clear on the issue of the relevance of that prior use for novelty and inventive step.
If it had submitted this material at such a point in time that the two months’ time limit of Rule 118(2) EPC could have been complied with in respect of the date originally set for the oral proceedings, no postponement would have been necessary and the appellant's costs would not have been incurred unnecessarily.
Instead, the respondent waited until the final date of 4 January 2010 as set by the opposition division before submitting a "first" portion of its request pursuant to Article 117(1)(d) EPC which caused the opposition division’s further communication of 22 February 2010 leading to the submission of the "second" portion with the names and addresses of the witnesses as late as on 20 April 2010.
The respondent's argument that it was faced with difficulties in locating the two witnesses, who had changed employment, cannot hold as it had sufficient time between the filing of the opposition and mention of the prior use in July 2006 and the issuance of the summons to oral proceedings in September 2009 to find both persons who were active at that time for Topack GmbH, a company within the same conglomerate as the opponent, up to the end of 2003. Further, it does not take away the procedural fact that the responsibility for stating its complete case, including all necessary evidence, and the risk for any failure in doing so lie exclusively within the respondent’s own sphere. As a consequence, any delay causing the incurring of additional costs by the other party remains within the respondent's sphere and liability.
3.5 It, therefore, is equitable to order that the respondent meet part of the additional costs incurred by the appellant, i.e. those costs caused by the cancellation of the flight and hotel bookings due to the postponement of the oral proceedings foreseen for 3 March 2010.
Bah, au moins, avec le remboursement du vol et de l'hôtel, le breveté aura pu aller boire un coup pour se consoler...
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