2026-06-12 - LD Mannheim - Irdeto v. DJI et al. - UPC_CFI_344/2025
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_344/2025
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Mannheim (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Decision
- Parteien:
- Irdeto B.V. v. DJI Europe B.V.. et.al.
Kernaussage: The Mannheim Local Division dismissed both the infringement action and the counterclaim for revocation, upholding EP 2 831 787 B1 as granted while finding it not infringed.
2026-06-12 - LD Mannheim - Irdeto
v.
DJI et al. - UPC_CFI_344/2025
notable
The Mannheim Local Division dismissed both the infringement action and the counterclaim for revocation, upholding EP 2 831 787 B1 as granted while finding it not infringed. On validity the panel rejected every ground — added matter, insufficiency, novelty and inventive step — applying the Court of Appeal frameworks from NanoString v 10x Genomics (claim construction), Amgen v Sanofi (added matter and sufficiency), Mammut v Ortovox (novelty) and Meril v Edwards (inventive step). The decisive issue was claim construction: the court held the claimed 'secured software agent' must reside in the same abstraction layer as the kernel and must validate dynamically at runtime in reaction to an upcall, going beyond mere permission-based access control. That same construction sank infringement — the claimant bore the burden of proving the attacked embodiments actually perform such runtime validation, and a generic expert opinion not tied to the specific implementation (where the protected partition is verified at boot time) was insufficient. Under the parties' 'flat amount' costs agreement the split outcome led the court to order each side to bear its own costs.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Novelty attacks (Art. 138(1)(a), 54 EPC) on the Prior Linux version, D1 (US 2009/0271844) and D6 (LSM article) all failed. A non-buildable Linux source tree does not directly and unambiguously disclose a running SELinux+dm-verity combination performing runtime validation; D1 locates the verifying service in user space and discloses no sole-access secured storage; mere SELinux permission control does not qualify as the claimed validation [76]-[88].”
Inventive Step
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Inventive-step attacks (Art. 138(1)(a), 56 EPC) failed across all combinations — Prior Linux / Linux 3.3 alone, D1 alone or with D2/D3/D4, D5+D1, and D6 with D2/D3/D4/D5. The defendants did not show the skilled person 'would' have implemented dm-verity to validate at runtime in reaction to an upcall, nor that the prior art prompts a secured software agent in the kernel layer with sole access to a secured data storage [92]-[116].”
Added Matter
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 123(2) EPC · Art. 138(1)(c) EPC
“Added-matter ground (Art. 138(1)(c) EPC) rejected. Paragraphs [0047]/[0048] of the application disclose the upcall-plus-secured-storage combination of features 1.2.1-1.2.3 without an inextricable link to loading of a loadable kernel module; integrity verification is only one example, so no impermissible intermediate generalisation [62]-[65].”
Insufficiency of Disclosure
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 83 EPC · Art. 138(1)(b) EPC
“Insufficiency ground (Art. 138(1)(b) EPC) rejected. Claim 1 is not limited to the LSM framework or dm-verity, so an attack premised on the difficulty of implementing those particular mechanisms fails; one workable way of performing the functionally defined invention suffices and the burden lies on the party invoking invalidity [66]-[70].”