2026-09-22 - LD Munich - Maxell v. Samsung - UPC_CFI_196/2025
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_196/2025
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Munich (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Decision
- Parteien:
- Maxell, Ltd. v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., Samsung Electronics GmbH, Samsung Electronics France, S.A.S., Samsung Electronics Benelux B.V. , Samsung Electronics Italia SpA.
Kernaussage: The Munich LD (Panel 1a) decided Maxell's infringement action and Samsung's counterclaim for revocation together and revoked the patent in its entirety.
2026-09-22 - LD Munich - Maxell
v.
Samsung - UPC_CFI_196/2025
routine
The Munich LD (Panel 1a) decided Maxell's infringement action and Samsung's counterclaim for revocation together and revoked the patent in its entirety. Claims 1 and 8 as granted lacked novelty over a single prior-art document, the Court holding that a disclosed operation panel for controlling content played back on the external device self-evidently discloses the claimed display of operating information and the transmission of the second user operation. Applying the CoA inventive-step framework of Meril v Edwards and Amgen v Sanofi, the Court found auxiliary requests 3 to 9c obvious over two combinations of prior art, adopting The Hague LD's rule that a plurality of routine modifications without functional interdependency is a mere aggregation of obvious features; auxiliary requests 12 and 13 failed for added matter because the application disclosed information indicating a UTF-8 character encoding item, not information that is itself UTF-8-encoded. The infringement action was dismissed without an infringement analysis, and costs followed the parties' agreement at the EUR 600,000 representation-cost ceiling plus the court fee.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Patent invalid (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The novelty attack succeeded: D1 (US 2006/263048 A1, Sony) directly and unambiguously discloses all features of claims 1 and 8 as granted, including features 1.5.1.2b and 1.5.2 contested by Maxell [69]-[75].”
Inventive Step
Patent invalid (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The inventive-step attacks on the auxiliary requests succeeded: AR3, AR4, AR5, AR6b, AR7 and AR7b obvious over D1 + D7 [84]-[117]; AR8, AR9, AR9b and AR9c obvious over D1 + D10 (with RFC 3629 as common general knowledge for UTF-8) [121]-[139].”
Added Matter
Patent invalid (this ground)Art. 123(2) EPC · Art. 138(1)(c) EPC
“Added matter found against AR12 and AR13: the application disclosed display-state information indicating a character encoding item designating UTF-8, not that the display-state information is itself UTF-8-encoded [143]-[148]. The added-matter attack on the granted claims was not reached.”