2025-04-30 - LD Hamburg - AGFA v. Guccio Gucci - UPC_CFI_278/2023

1. Art. 32 (1) e) and 65 (1) UPCA allow to attack the patent in its entirety by means of a counterclaim, even though single claims are not a part of the infringement requests. 2. The definition of claimed features based on the principle that a patent may be used as its “own lexicon” is limited to those parts of the description that are related to the feature in question. 3. Specifications in the description that are not consistent with the granted claims cannot serve as a basis of a broad interpretation of a claim. 4. A counterclaimant cannot introduce new grounds of invalidity of the attacked patent or introduce new documents considered novelty destroying or convincing starting points for the assessment of lack of inventive step in the oral hearing for the first time.

The Hamburg Local Division dismissed an infringement action as well as the counterclaim for revocation, finding the patent valid but not infringed. The Court went into detail regarding the scope of validity attacks in a counterclaim, principles for claim construction and the timing of validity attacks, rejecting newly introduced grounds for validity. [To be amended]