Nordson EFD ./. Gema Switzerland

Case No. O2013_008 ¦ Main Hearing of 15 June 2015

The patent in suit is EP 899 016 B1 of Nordson Corp.; the defendant is GEMA Switzerland GmbH. See Swissreg for further bibliographic details of the patent in suit. It pertains to a spray gun like the one shown in Fig. 2:

The only independent claim 1 reads as follows:

An apparatus (20) for use in applying coating material to an object comprising a spray gun (24) having a handle portion (26) Illinois area code , an extension portion (28) which is connected with the handle portion (26), a nozzle (42) connected with the extension portion (28), an electrode (46) disposed adjacent to the nozzle (42) and away from which electrostatically charged coating material flows toward the object, a coating material flow control member (74) connected with the handle portion (26) and manually operable to an actuated condition to initiate a flow of coating material from a coating material passage (62) in said extension portion (28) through the nozzle (42) toward the object, characterised in that the spray gun (24) also has a purge air flow control member (110) connected with the handle portion (26) and which is manually operable to initiate a flow of air from the coating material passage (62) in the extension portion (28) through the nozzle (42) to remove coating material from the spray gun (24).

Note that the Federal Patent Court of Germany in a recent decision of April 29, 2015 had maintained the patent only in a limited extent (see DPMAregister and 4 Ni 26/13 for details). It is unclear whether this decision has been appealed.

Neither party was interested in settlement negotiations. We may thus await a decision on the merits of this case.

Reported by Ingo LUMMER and Martin WILMING

— BIBLIOGRAPHY —

Case No. O2013_008 ¦ Main Hearing of 15 June 2015

Nordson EFD ./. GEMA Switzerland GmbH

Composition of the Board of the FPC:

• Dr. Dieter BRÄNDLE
• Dr. Tobias BREMI
• Dr. Herbert LÄDERACH
• Christoph MÜLLER
• Dr. Simon HOLZER

Court Clerk

• Susanne ANDERHALDEN

Reporting Judge:

• [unknown]

Representative(s) of Plaintiff:

• Dr. Christian HILTI (Rentsch)
• Dr. Jens OTTOW (Rentsch), assisting in patent matters

Representative(s) of Defendant:

• Dr. Andri HESS (Homburger)
• Dr. Ole TRINKS (Meissner Bolte), assisting in patent matters

— PATENT IN SUIT —

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