In its decision Digitalblock (digital block) the Higher Regional Court of Düsseldorf (Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf) has discussed the question whether “sleeping” features of a device can cause patent infringement (judgement of 19 February 2015, docket No. I-15 U 39/14). The case was about set-top boxes for receiving free-to-air and encrypted television signals. The patent concerned a…
In this case the FCJ discussed the criterion of “equivalence” for a non-literal infringement of a patent. The Court held that one has to assess all technical effects which have to be achieved with the patented features to solve the underlying technical problem. The entire combination of these effects forms the patented solution. For the…
Some Late Summer Thoughts about Molten Polymers and two Decisions by the German Federal Court of Justice Now that the unusual heat of this summer in central Europe finally seems to have ended, it might be a good point in time to activate our cerebral bio-polymers again. So let us muse about the melting of…
by Bernward Zollner In a decision of 20 January 2015 the German Bundesgerichtshof has discussed the validity of the EP 0 964 031 and has confirmed at the end the previous judgement of the Bundespatentgericht by which the patent had been found to be invalid. The reasoning, however, was different: The claim as defended concerned…
The Oberlandesgericht Düsseldorf (Higher Regional Court, appeal instance) just issued a court order on the admissibility of new prior art that the defendant discovered only in the second instance infringement proceedings. The defendant and appellant in the proceedings had requested a stay of the infringement appeal based on this new and relevant prior art until…
Dealing with claim construction issues, the FCJ held that a claim construction which leads to the result that none of the embodiments described in the patent specification would be covered by the claim can only be considered if other possibilities of claim construction have to be definitely excluded or when the claim contains a clear…
When defining the technical problem underlying an invention, it may not simply be assumed that the person skilled in the art needed to address a particular problem. On the contrary, the technical problem must be formulated so generally and neutrally that the question as to which incentives a person skilled in the art obtained from…
(a) Advantages of the invention that have only become evident once the invention was made, and at which therefore the skilled person would not have directed his efforts to further develop the state of the art, may not be used to define the technical problem underlying the invention (the Aufgabe of the invention). (b) Depending…
by Miriam Büttner In a recent decision the German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, FCJ) dealt with the requirements of an obvious pre-use (judgment of 9 December 2014, docket no. X ZR 6/13 – Presszange). In 2011 plaintiff attacked the German part of the European Patent 1 223 008 (DE 502 06 178.2), which concerns…
The German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, FCJ) has issued the decision “Bildstrom” (judgment of 26 February 2015, docket no. X ZR 37/13) dealing with the patentability of a system and a method for displaying an image stream. The attacked patent EP 1474927 concerns a technical teaching for displaying an image stream, wherein at least…
