Article 8

1. Where, until the expiry of the period referred to in Article 7(1), the opposing party has not provided any evidence, or where the evidence provided is manifestly irrelevant or manifestly insufficient to meet the requirements laid down in Article 7(2) for any of the earlier rights, the opposition shall be rejected as unfounded.

2. Where the opposition is not rejected pursuant to paragraph 1, the Office shall communicate the submission of the opposing party to the applicant and shall invite it to file its observations within a period specified by the Office.

3. Where the applicant submits no observations, the Office shall base its ruling on the opposition on the evidence before it.

4. The observations submitted by the applicant shall be communicated to the opposing party who shall be invited, if the Office considers it necessary, to reply within a period specified by the Office.

5. Where, after the expiry of the period referred to in Article 7(1), the opposing party submits facts or evidence that supplement relevant facts or evidence provided within that period and that relate to the same requirement laid down in Article 7(2), the Office shall exercise its discretion under Article 95(2) of Regulation (EU) 2017/1001 in deciding whether to accept these supplementing facts or evidence. For that purpose, the Office shall take into account, in particular, the stage of proceedings and whether the facts or evidence are, prima facie, likely to be relevant for the outcome of the case and whether there are valid reasons for the late submission of the facts or evidence.

6. The Office shall invite the applicant to submit further observations in response if it deems it appropriate under the circumstances.

7. Where the opposition has not been rejected pursuant to paragraph 1 and the evidence submitted by the opposing party is not sufficient to substantiate the opposition in accordance with Article 7 for any of the earlier rights, the opposition shall be rejected as unfounded.

8. Article 6(2) and (3) shall apply mutatis mutandis after the date on which the adversarial part of the opposition proceedings is deemed to commence. Where the applicant wishes to withdraw or restrict the contested application, it shall do so by way of a separate document.

9. In appropriate cases, the Office may invite the parties to limit their observations to particular issues, in which case it shall allow them to raise the other issues at a later stage of the proceedings. The Office shall not be required to inform a party of the possibility of producing certain relevant facts or evidence which that party previously failed to produce.