2026-03-03 - LD The Hague - Philips et al. v. Philips et al. - UPC_CFI_43/2025 and UPC_CFI_103/2025

The Hague Local Division revoked a patent for a wearable position-therapy device in its entirety on a counterclaim and dismissed the infringement action that had prompted it. The outcome turns on claim construction. Reading the claim rather than the embodiments, the Court held that a 'position detector' is any detector able to signal that the target position has been assumed — a simple on/off switch will do — that a 'microcontroller' is at least a chip performing logical operations, with neither memory nor the ability to run software being claimed, and that a user 'reset' is satisfied by switching the device off and on again. On that construction a 1991 Japanese anti-snoring device anticipated every feature of claim 1, its mercury tilt switch being the position detector and its timer and counter chips the microcontroller. The auxiliary request adding an accelerometer was held obvious over the same document: mercury has been prohibited in the EU since 2006, so the skilled person was compelled to replace the switch, and accelerometers were standard off-the-shelf components in this field by the priority date. The unamended dependent claims could not change that, and the patent was revoked. The revocation is not immediately enforceable and takes effect when the decision becomes final; costs were fixed at the figure the parties had agreed.