2026-04-10 - CD Milan - Fisher & Paykel Healthcare v. Flexicare (Group) - UPC_CFI_480/2025

ENGLISH: When assessing novelty, the Court will examine the disclosure of the prior art document overall and will compare this disclosure to the scope of the patent in suit. If one way of “mapping” leads to the assessment that a piece of prior art is novelty destroying, this leads to the result that the patent must be revoked.

Patent revoked in its entirety for lack of novelty. The Milan CD established a key novelty assessment principle: when comparing prior art to the patent scope, if any valid way of 'mapping' prior art elements to claim features results in novelty being destroyed, the patent must be revoked. Claim 1 and AR1 not novel over D2 (WO 2015/193833). AR3 et seq. rejected for lack of clarity (Art. 84 EPC). The court also clarified that there is no implicit request to maintain a patent based on dependent claims — the patentee must file a formal amendment application to restructure claims.