Judgment No. 3793

• Organization: European Patent Organisation (EPO)
• Date: 08.02.2017
• Original: English
• Judges: Barbagallo, Hansen, Rawlins
• Full judgment text - Full judgment text (french)

Decision

The complaint is dismissed.

Summary

The complainant challenges the decision not to grant him a dependants’ allowance for his mother.

Judgment keywords

Keywords

allowance; dependant; complaint dismissed

Consideration 2

Extract:

The case law is clear that “the burden of proof is on the sender to establish the date on which a communication was received. If that cannot be done (perhaps because the document was sent by a system of transmission that does not permit actual proof), the Tribunal will ordinarily accept what is said by the addressee about the date of receipt [...]” (see Judgment 3253, under 7). Based on information received from the Munich Post Office, the EPO states that the complainant “most likely” received the decision on 31 May. This is insufficient to prove actual receipt. Accordingly, the complainant’s statement that he received the decision on 1 June is accepted and it follows that the complaint is receivable.

Reference(s)

ILOAT reference: Article VII, par. 1, of the Statute
ILOAT Judgment(s): 3253

Keywords

burden of proof