IPKat publishes the
decision of the Enlarged Board of Appeal (EBoA) under Article 23 EPC.It explains why the EBoA rejected the request made by the Administrative Council (AC) chairman, Mr Kongstad, seeking the dismissal of a Board Member for the events leading up to the house ban.
In another post, IPKat publishes the most significant arguments:
Contrary to what Merpel had understood, the request was NOT rejected for the procedural reason that Mr. Kongstad had made the request rather than the AC making the request as Article 23 requires. Indeed the EBA found that Mr. Kongstad was authorised to make the request on behalf of the AC.- The request was rejected because it was not properly substantiated. The AC had commissioned a report from a specially constituted Disciplinary Committee (DC). That DC's report formed the substance of the case, and was accompanied by a USB stick containing a mass of documents and files, which were said to be the evidence against the Board Member.
- The EBA held that the DC report did not sufficiently document the facts and evidence for two of the five allegations it held to have been proven, and nor did it express a view on the reliability of the evidence itself. This meant that neither the EBA itself nor the Board Member being accused was able to preoperly understand and respond to the case being made and it was not reasonable for the EBA and the other party to trawl through the USB stick to reconstitute the evidence.
