Dr. Simon Klopschinski
In a recent judgment the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) decided on the question of whether the infringement court is bound by an interpretation of the…
The Court held that a certain means does not relate to an essential element of the invention just because it is used for a step in the method preceding the patented steps of the method. Even where…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
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…
(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…
