Bonum Certa Men Certa

The EPO's War on Justice and Assault on the Law -- Part 14: Nemo Iudex in Causa Sua?

Previously in this series:



A partiality issue
According to well-informed commentators, the majority of the panel are under suspicion of partiality.



Summary: After Benoît Battistelli had put Carl Josefsson in charge at BoA António Campinos decided to make him the 'New Normal' rubber-stamping apparatus, in effect serving to normalise clear violations of the EPC

At the time of writing, the EPO's file register (warning: epo.org link) for case no. G 1/21 contains around ten anonymous "third party observations" [1] and an impressive number of amicus curiae briefs (warning: epo.org link) – 47 in total.



The amicus curiae briefs come from a wide range of sources, including individuals, patent attorney associations and large multinational corporations with a great deal of skin in the patenting game, for example Bayer (Monsanto), Siemens, BASF, Philips International B.V., Hoffmann-La-Roche AG and Philip Morris Products.

The contents of these submissions have been the subject of analysis and comments both on IPKat and on the Kluwer Patent Blog.

"The amicus curiae briefs come from a wide range of sources, including individuals, patent attorney associations and large multinational corporations with a great deal of skin in the patenting game, for example Bayer (Monsanto), Siemens, BASF, Philips International B.V., Hoffmann-La-Roche AG and Philip Morris Products."Many of the comments concern suspicions of partiality relating to the internal members of the panel entrusted with the case.

Much of the criticism has centred on the Chairman of the Enlarged Board, Carl Josefsson.

It needs to be recalled here that, in his capacity as President of the Boards of Appeal, Josefsson was directly involved in the introduction of the disputed amendments to the Rules of Procedure of the Boards of Appeal. The involvement of the President of the Boards of Appeal in this amendment procedure is foreseen under Rule€ 12c(2)€ EPC. (Warning: epo.org link)

However, it now seems that Josefsson - in his capacity as Chairman of the Enlarged Board - is insisting on playing a key role in deciding whether or not the amendments which he himself proposed are compatible with the European Patent Convention.

As pointed out by Thorsten Bausch on the Kluwer Patent Blog, this would appear to be in flagrant disregard for the fundamental and generally recognised principle of natural justice, nemo iudex in causa sua, according to which no person should be entrusted with the task of judging a case in which they have an interest.

"Much of the criticism has centred on the Chairman of the Enlarged Board, Carl Josefsson."One pseudonymous amicus curiae brief submitted under the name "Schauinsland" [2] provide a neat summary of the issues in Josefsson's case:

Manifest partiality of the president of the boards of appeal in case G 1/21

The president of the boards of appeal, Mr Josefsson, has decided to put himself as chair in G 1/21.

The succession of facts mentioned above would impose that Mr Josefsson deports himself in G 1/21. Not only he is chairing the case, has contributed to the drafting of Art 15aRPBA2020, but at the same time he has contributed in rushing the whole affair by abiding to the bare minimum foreseen under R 115 when summoning to oral proceedings. In view of his attitude, there is not even the perception that Mr Josefsson would be not prejudiced, he actually is.


The criticism of the composition of the panel is not limited to Josefsson but also includes the other internal members.

In the case of Ingo Beckedorf, it has been claimed on IPKat that he was personally responsible for drafting the text accompanying the proposal for the new Article 15a RPBA [3].

Another commentator pointed out that Beckedorf had already acted as Chairman in an appeal case where the Board responsible for the decision ruled that an oral hearing could be held by videoconference despite the absence of consent from a party.

"The criticism of the composition of the panel is not limited to Josefsson but also includes the other internal members."The implication here is that Beckedorf has already expressed an opinion on the issues under consideration in G 1/21 thereby effectively disqualifying himself from participating in this referral case.

On IPKat, Flopsy the Bunny made the following comment casting doubts on the impartiality of the majority of internal members of the panel entrusted with case no. G 1/21:

At the meeting where the BOAC "consulted" with users on the new Art 15A, the BOAC was strongly urged to amend the text of the article to make enforced attendance via VICO a purely temporary provision during the pandemic. These submissions were completely ignored on the basis (according to the notice published on 15 December 2020) that new Art 15A "merely clarifies an existing possibility" and thus is already compliant with the EPC. Present on behalf of the Boards at that meeting were the following members of the panel selected for hearing this appeal:

C. Josefsson I. Beckedorf G. Eliasson A. Ritzka

So that's a majority of the panel who have the appearance of partiality.

Josefsson chairing the panel is beyond a joke.


It really does look like the Enlarged Board of Appeal has a serious problem with the composition of the panel in this case.

We will return to this topic later, but first of all we will turn our attention to what has become known as the "missing signatures" affair of December 2014 and its potential implications for two individual EBA members in the present case.

Documents cited in this article:



  1. G 1/21 - Third Party Observations [PDF]


  2. A. Schauinsland amicus curiae G 1/21 [PDF]


  3. CA-5-21_en [PDF]

Recent Techrights' Posts

New XBox Leaks Probably Serve to Confirm XBox's Collapse (Many More Layoffs)
It's very much consistent with what many other sites have reported lately
 
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Thursday, October 09, 2025
IRC logs for Thursday, October 09, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Farewell to Jane Goodall, California Bans Algorithmic Price-Fixing
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Lost Wages and a Saga Of Continuing To Use Palm PDAs
Links for the day
Richard Stallman's Talk in Helsinki is Done. Tomorrow Göteborg.
There are scarce details in Finnish about Dr. Stallman's talk
The Slop Song
The train wreck marches on
LLM Slop/Advanced Plagiarism Flooding the Zone With Capital That Does Not Exist
Many publishers out there still participate in this bubble instead of calling it what it is
Links 09/10/2025: Sacked Microsoft Workers Make "Sackbird", IBM Taps CockroachDB for PostgreSQL
Links for the day
"Happy Hacking Day" Richard Stallman Talk This Afternoon (From 14:00 to 16:00) at Haaga-Helia University in Pasila
Richard Stallman in Helsinki, Finland
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Wednesday, October 08, 2025
IRC logs for Wednesday, October 08, 2025
Links 09/10/2025: Impact of Microsoft Layoffs, More Data Breaches
Links for the day
Gemini Links 09/10/2025: Autumn Blues and C IRC Bot
Links for the day
Slopwatch Appreciated by Real Authors of GNU/Linux Articles
We do try to keep on top of those things
Upgraded R.R.R.R.R.R. Today
The Web of 2025 is full of garbage, not limited to slopfarms
Freedom From Proprietary Prisons
Forking always an option
IBM's Watson Died in 1956, Now Watson Dies Again
IBM is becoming just a reseller of GAFAM and other stuff
Slopwatch: LinuxSecurity, UbuntuPIT, and Google News
We've also just noticed more slop from UbuntuPIT
Microsoft Says That Constant Mass Layoffs Are Success, the Media Isn't Buying This Microsoft Narrative Anymore
If people in the media feel an obligation to repeat whatever lies Microsoft tells, what point will there be to the media?
Links 08/10/2025: "Mali Puts Free Speech on Trial" And Apple Enforces Dictatorship
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: ‘Death to Spotify’ and Law to Ban Loud Commercials on Streaming (Dis)Services
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Real Innovation and Nina.chat is Dead
Links for the day
Links 08/10/2025: Y2K38 Bug is a Vulnerability, Chat Control in Europe a Threat
Links for the day
Microsoft Windows is No Longer an Operating System, It's Surveillance Project
Why is this even legal to preload on PCs outside the US?
How and Why Once-Legitimate Sites Turn Into Slopfarms
Many sites will go offline and many social control networks will shut down once they realise or even openly admit they spend money and time gardening a bunch of bots and slop
UbuntuPIT Became a Slopfarm and Gnoppix Tarnishes Its Own Brand With Slop
It fits all the characteristics of mildly-edited (if at all) slop
Slopwatch: Linux Journal and Other Slopfarms
GAFAM needs to go the way of the dodo
Gemini Links 08/10/2025: "Seek Seek Revolution" and Gradient Backgrounds
Links for the day
Qualcomm Arduino Takes Aim at Raspberry Pi
Qualcomm is a Microsoft partner
Over at Tux Machines...
GNU/Linux news for the past day
IRC Proceedings: Tuesday, October 07, 2025
IRC logs for Tuesday, October 07, 2025
Stagnation of the Economy and What Free Software Can (or Could) Do For It
If your economic model is based on a pyramid of lies, it won't last very long
Social Control Media is Sinking
it would rightly seem like the era of centralised "social" sites (they're not social, they're about controlling the users) is ending, not overnight but gradually