Summary

From 1 November 2026, participating EPO Boards of Appeal may audio-record oral proceedings held by videoconference and use artificial intelligence to transcribe them, solely to help prepare the minutes. The recordings and transcripts are internal working documents. Parties cannot see them, and they are deleted no later than one month after the minutes are notified. The official record does not change: the authenticated minutes remain the only record, so anything a party needs on the record must still be stated clearly at the hearing and checked in the minutes.

The Event

According to an EPO announcement, the President of the Boards of Appeal issued a decision dated 9 October 2026. It permits Boards to audio-record oral proceedings and to transcribe and process the recordings with AI assistance in order to prepare the minutes. The main terms, as the EPO describes them:

  • Scope: in the initial phase, recording is limited to oral proceedings held by videoconference. A pilot programme with participating Boards starts on 1 November 2026.
  • Case-by-case discretion: the Board in each case decides whether to record and whether to use AI to produce a transcript.
  • Status of the material: recordings and transcripts are internal preparatory documents. They do not form part of the file and will not be made available to the parties or the public.
  • Retention: to meet data protection requirements, recordings and transcripts are deleted no later than one month after notification of the minutes.
  • Legal nature of the minutes: unchanged. The minute writer remains responsible for drafting under Rule 124(1) EPC, the content stays limited to the essentials, and the authenticated minutes remain the sole official record.
  • Party recording: as before, participants other than EPO employees may not record or transmit oral proceedings in any form.
  • Notice: the EPO states that parties are envisaged to be informed of the recording before the hearing begins.

Context

The decision is about accuracy in drafting, not about the contents of the record. The EPO itself says the tools may improve accuracy but do not change what the minutes are. A party should therefore not expect fuller minutes or a verbatim account of the arguments. What changes is the material the minute writer can consult when deciding what the essentials were.

The design follows a pattern visible in other settings. A February 2026 article by court-recording vendor JAVS describes US courts using AI transcription to produce rough drafts that a human then reviews before anything enters the official record. It lists known weaknesses: crosstalk, accents and non-native speakers, technical vocabulary and speaker attribution. A May 2025 joint statement by the Australian Institute of Company Directors and the Governance Institute of Australia, written for board minutes, advises that AI should not be the sole tool, that human review stays central, and that retained recordings or transcripts can surface later and conflict with the formal minutes. The EPO model addresses that last risk directly. The material never enters the file and is deleted on a fixed schedule, so the authenticated minutes do not compete with a second, more detailed account.

Implications

The change is neutral between patentees and challengers. It alters how the record is prepared, not any substantive or procedural standard. It does not favour the proprietor defending a patent or the opponent attacking it. A Korean or other Asian company that is patent proprietor in one appeal and opponent in the next faces the same exposure in both roles: the minutes alone capture what was requested, withdrawn or conceded.

The recording is not a safety net for parties. It is the Board's tool. Parties cannot access it, cannot cite it, and it is gone within a month of the minutes being notified. If the minutes misstate a request, the recording will not help a party prove what was said.

Speech recognition risk falls hardest on non-native speakers. Both the JAVS article and a February 2025 Faegre Drinker client alert note that AI transcription struggles with accents and non-native speech. A human minute writer still controls the minutes, which limits the risk. Even so, Korean, Japanese and Chinese teams presenting in a second language, or through interpreters, should not assume that an AI transcript will capture a quickly spoken request correctly.

Practical steps for any party appearing before a Board by videoconference:

  • State requests by exact designation. Refer to each request by its precise label and filing date (for example, auxiliary request 3 as filed on a stated date). Do not use shorthand such as the narrower version. Restate the final order of requests clearly before the Board closes the debate.
  • Ask for specific points to be noted. If a withdrawal, a concession by the other side or a procedural objection matters to you, say so expressly and ask the Board to record it in the minutes. Do not rely on the transcript to preserve it.
  • Keep a dedicated human note-taker. The ban on party recording still applies, so your own contemporaneous notes are the only reference you will have. Assign one team member to this task alone.
  • Check the minutes on receipt. Compare them against your notes as soon as they are notified, and escalate any discrepancy at once rather than at the next deadline.

Outlook

Three things to watch. First, whether the pilot extends beyond the participating Boards and beyond videoconference hearings to in-person proceedings. Second, whether the envisaged advance notice to parties becomes a formal, consistent step. Third, any statement from the Boards on how well AI-assisted drafting performs, especially with non-native speakers and technical terminology.

Two actions do not depend on those outcomes and are worth taking now:

  • Audit your hearing setup for automatic AI tools. Platforms such as Zoom, Microsoft Teams and Google Meet now include AI meeting assistants that record or transcribe, a point both the Faegre Drinker alert and the AICD statement make. Before any EPO videoconference, confirm that no device on your side has an AI notetaker, auto-transcription or recording enabled. This includes client staff, interpreters and foreign associates joining from Seoul, Tokyo or elsewhere. An unattended assistant would breach the prohibition on party recording.
  • Put the rule in writing. Add a no-recording, no-AI-assistant clause to hearing preparation checklists and to instructions given to European representatives and in-house participants. This follows the Faegre Drinker recommendation to bind service providers against third-party recordings that do not comply with policy.

If the pilot later expands to in-person hearings, the same discipline carries over unchanged. Clear statements of requests, a dedicated note-taker and prompt review of the minutes protect the record whichever tools the Board uses.

Sources