2026-09-18 - LD Mannheim - Honeywell Control Systems v. Sovex Systems et al. - UPC-CFI-0001135/2025
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC-CFI-0001135/2025
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Mannheim (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Decision
- Parteien:
- Honeywell Control Systems Ltd. v. Sovex Systems B.V., Solvest Participatie V B.V., Solvest Participatie VI B.V., Solvest Participatie VII B.V., Solvink B.V., De Kleine Beuk B.V., Hemtech d.o.o.
Kernaussage: The Mannheim Local Division decided an infringement action together with a conditional counterclaim for revocation and found the patent valid and infringed.
2026-09-18 - LD Mannheim - Honeywell Control Systems
v.
Sovex Systems et al. - UPC-CFI-0001135/2025
notable
The Mannheim Local Division decided an infringement action together with a conditional counterclaim for revocation and found the patent valid and infringed. On validity it held that an express statement in a prior-art document that a technical arrangement is absent cannot be read as an implicit disclosure of that arrangement, and that a skilled person will not undertake a fundamental redesign of a realistic starting point without a pointer. On the licence defence it held that a defendant must substantiate its defence in the UPC proceedings themselves; a reference to written submissions in parallel national proceedings, filed without their exhibits, does not satisfy R. 24 RoP. On attribution it applied Belkin v Philips and held that shareholder status alone does not make a holding company an infringer, while a former licensee that knows of its subsidiary's infringement and does not instruct it to stop has those acts attributed to it. It refused a stay under R. 295(m) RoP because the proceedings were at an advanced stage and the licence defence failed in any event.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The novelty attack based on GB 2 136 753 failed. The document states expressly that the articulated boom section has no telescopic capability, so it does not disclose feature 1.7 (nesting within an adjacent conveyor unit) either explicitly or implicitly [104]-[111].”
Inventive Step
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“All four obviousness attacks failed: GB 753 alone [125]-[127], GB 753 with US 346 [158]-[159], US 346 with GB 753 [161]-[163], and US 346 with GB 076 [171]. Each combination would have required a fundamental structural redesign that the skilled person had no pointer to undertake.”