Facts
Parties: Appellant (A. AG) and Respondent (B. GmbH)
Court: I. Civil Law Division of the Federal Supreme Court
Date: May 25, 2021
Facts: The appellant accuses the lower court of having incorrectly interpreted the disputed patent and of violating Art. 51 para. 3 PatA, Art. 69 EPC 2000, and Art. 9 Cst. Furthermore, it complains that the lower court violated Art. 26 para. 1 lit. c PatA and Art. 123 para. 2 EPC 2000 by considering that the disputed patent had been impermissibly extended compared to the initial application.
Main Issue: Whether the lower court correctly interpreted the disputed patent and whether the amendment to the patent claim was admissible.
Considerations
The interpretation of patent claims is a question of law that can be freely reviewed by the Federal Supreme Court in the appeal proceedings. The scope of protection of the patent is determined by the patent claims, which are to be interpreted as the expert would understand them. The starting point for any interpretation is the wording, with the description and drawings only being used for interpretation if the wording is unclear.
The respondent argued that the interpretation of the terms 'extended canopy', 'plane of the opening', and 'spaced proximally from' was a question of fact that could only be reviewed within the framework of an arbitrariness review. The Federal Supreme Court rejected this, as patent claims must be interpreted normatively and not empirically. The absolute normative effect of the patent claims requires a uniform understanding of the reserved sphere of power, which necessitates a normative interpretation.
The lower court had found that the disputed patent had been impermissibly extended compared to the initial application, which led to the nullity of the disputed patent. The Federal Supreme Court confirmed this decision, as the extracted feature ('spaced proximally from the plane of the opening') was based on an impermissible intermediate…