 After considering that the President of the EPO had not forfeited her right to a referral because the preceding President, Alain Pompidou, had declined in 2007 to refer questions to the Enlarged Board Appeal (when suggested to do so by British judge Lord Justice Jacob), the Board considered the referred questions to be undoubtedly of fundamental importance under .The Board goes on by writing that the president's right of referral to the Enlarged Board does not extend to means of replacing Board of Appeal rulings with the decision of a putatively higher instance, as / does not constitute a further instance ranking above the Boards of Appeal within the EPC judicial system.According to the Board, "[the EPO's Boards of Appeal] are ... assigned interpretative supremacy with regard to the EPC in terms of its scope of application".