The ECJ tightens the requirements for granting a filing date for Community designs. Accordingly, the representation of a design application must not only be physically suitable for reproduction, but must also clearly and unambiguously indicate the elements which constitute the representation of the design applied for.

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Our summary and statement on the decision can be found in the news on our website .

In this fundamental decision, the BGH relativized the previous restriction on the consideration of new grounds for revocation in opposition appeal proceedings to the effect that the opponent may assert additional grounds for revocation in appeal proceedings.

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The BGH concretizes its requirement that a court must always decide how to interpret a patent claim with respect to the question of how to treat a vague feature (here: "melted" with respect to plastic). Even such a vague feature must be given a concrete interpretation.

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The BGH decides on a patent for a clamping device. Clamping devices are used to be able to process workpieces to be machined successively on different machine tools with high precision. For this purpose, the workpiece is attached to the clamping device and the clamping device has an adapter that can be connected to the machine tools with high precision. The patent was confirmed after insertion of a concretization.

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The patent relates to a patent for extruding plastic in an extruder. The core of the problem in the parallel infringement proceedings was that some features of the claim were hardly verifiable, since it is practically impossible to look inside an extruder. In the invalidity proceedings, however, a more formal requirement was the patentee's undoing: a patent must not be directed to a process that cannot be clearly inferred from the documents originally filed.

The decisive factor in the proceedings was an imprecise feature, namely when a plastic is "melted". Depending on how this feature is interpreted, the patented process was either not inventive or the scope of protection had been inadmissibly extended in the granting procedure. The lower court left it undecided which reason led to invalidity. The BGH confirms the decision, but requires that a court must always decide how to interpret a patent claim.

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The BGH ruled on a patent for an electrical supply line for emergency lights, safety lights or escape route indicator lights. The patent was confirmed after the insertion of more specific information.

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The BGH elaborates on the inventive step in control programs for a dialysis program and deals with instructions and suggestions to a person skilled in the art formed by a team of technical and medical personnel.

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The ruling concerns a patent for an emergency drain that prevents so much water from collecting on a flat roof during heavy rain that it collapses. The design of this emergency drain roughly corresponds to a device known from swimming pool construction. One question to be clarified by the BGH was whether such a device is an "emergency drain" even if it is neither designed nor realistically suitable for draining roofs.

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The ruling concerns a one-piece capillary microcuvette for measuring chemical blood values. The patent was confirmed with slight limitations.

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The BGH contradicts the two lower courts and sentences an automobile manufacturer for patent infringement.

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The BGH has affirmed that it is permissible for the limited defense of a utility model to include the features of multiple dependent subclaims in the main claim without the features of the referenced subclaims. The decision was based on the fact that subclaims concern preferred forms of an embodiment and the utility model owner is not obliged to include all features of an embodiment in the new claim.

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The decision is fundamental for the interpretation of so-called product-by-process claims, in which an object is characterized by the process by means of which it was manufactured. The ruling clarifies that what matters is not whether the process is inventive, but whether the product made has properties that make it inventive. As a mnemonic: Anyone who manufactures water in an inventive way still cannot prohibit the use of water.

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The BGH comments on the question whether a patent can be granted even if the reason given by the inventor why his invention works is wrong. In addition, the BGH ruled that a term may be used ambiguously in the patent claim if the true meaning of this term is clear from the description.

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The BGH rules on the interpretation of a patent claim and emphasizes that it must be interpreted with the aid of the description.

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One of the classics among the BGH decisions that gave rise to the "Formstein objection": the infringement court is bound by the granted patent. A patent can also be infringed by equivalent means, i.e. in a way that is not directly covered by the wording of the patent claim but follows from it in an obvious way. However, the defendant is allowed to defend himself with the fact that these equivalent means are not inventive compared to the prior art.

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The unwritten principle of the prohibition of discovery evidence prevents a patentee from demanding even minimal cooperation from the defendant possible infringer. This case law has - fortunately - become obsolete by subsequent case law.

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