Case No. O2020_002 | Judgment of 21 December 2021
The plaintiff Delica had initiated nullity proceedings against Douwe Egbert’s CH 711 079 B1 on 2 June 2020; see Swissreg for bibliographic details.
CH 079 is part of a complex patent family. Corresponding to CH 079, the patent family comprises DE 20 2016 106 171 U1 (see the DPMA Register and file wrapper for further information), i.e. a utility model that was split off from a patent application (DE 10 2016 006 034 A1) which itself has meanwhile been been rejected in 2018 (cf. DPMA Register / file wrapper).
It is noted in ¶16 of the judgment that Douwe Egberts had initiated infringement proceedings 21 O 12764/19 in Munich, which are currently stayed in view of the cancellation proceedings; cf. order of 5 August 2020.
Claim 1 of CH 079 is pretty lengthy. In a nutshell, it’s about a coffee capsule with an aluminum capsule body and an aluminum cover, wherein the dispute was mainly about a specific arrangement of a sealing element in the flange of the capsule. Further independent claims pertain to a corresponding system and use of said capsule.
Urteil v. 21. Dez. 2021 i.S. Delica AG v. Koninklijke Douwe Egberts B.V.; Auslegung von Ansprüchen nach Treu u. Glauben; CH 711 079 B1 auch in eingeschränkter Fassung nicht neu gegenüber WO 2014/184652, https://t.co/xvkWwqw2yO
— Swiss Patent Court (@PatentCourt) January 12, 2022
About half of the judgment is dealing with the procedural history and a recitation of the various requests for maintenance of CH 079 in limited form; DE did not defend CH 079 as granted anymore. Yet further 12 pages of the judgment are spent on claim construction. The latter paved the way for a straight-forward assessment of patentability on the merits: The judgment holds that the subject-matter of all requests on file is anticipated by WO 2014 / 184 652 A1. Accordingly, CH 079 has been revoked and the further novelty attacks based on WO 2014 / 184 653 A1, WO 2014 / 198 474 A1, WO 2014 / 184 651 A1, EP 1 700 548 A1 and WO 2013 / 120 997 A1 did not need to be addressed.
The judgment is not yet final / can still be appealed to the Supreme Court.
Reported by Martin WILMING
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BIBLIOGRAPHY
Case No. O2020_002 | Judgment of 21 December 2021
Delica AG
./.
Koninklijke Douwe Egberts B.V.
Panel of Judges:
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- Dr. Mark SCHWEIZER
- André WERNER
- Kurt STOCKER
Judge-rapporteur:
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- André WERNER
Court Clerk:
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- Susanne ANDERHALDEN
Representative(s) of Plaintiff:
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- Dr. Stefan KOHLER (VISCHER)
- Jonas D. GASSMANN (VISCHER)
- Christoph MÜLLER (Hepp Wenger Ryffel), assisting in patent matters
Representative(s) of Defendant:
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DECISION IN FULL
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PATENT IN SUIT
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