2026-02-11 - LD Düsseldorf - Canon Kabushiki Kaisha v. Katun et al. - UPC_CFI_351/2024
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_351/2024
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Düsseldorf (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Order
- Parteien:
- Canon Kabushiki Kaisha v. Katun Germany GmbH, Katun (E.D.C.) B.V., Katun Corporation, General Plastic Industrial Co., Ltd.
Kernaussage: The Düsseldorf Local Division upheld a unitary patent on a printer-consumable container against a revocation counterclaim and found all four defendants in the supply chain to infringe, the foreign manufacturer as an accomplice because it knew of and intended the distribution in…
2026-02-11 - LD Düsseldorf - Canon Kabushiki Kaisha
v.
Katun et al. - UPC_CFI_351/2024
notable
The Düsseldorf Local Division upheld a unitary patent on a printer-consumable container against a revocation counterclaim and found all four defendants in the supply chain to infringe, the foreign manufacturer as an accomplice because it knew of and intended the distribution in UPC territory. Claim construction turned on whether the claim covers a container or a system: the Court held that naming the apparatus the container is mountable to does not make the apparatus a claimed element, so the container need only be suitable for such mounting — which disposed of the sole infringement defence and made the auxiliary indirect-infringement case unnecessary. On added matter the decision is a practical guide to attacking a translation: a party that disputes the published English text of a Japanese PCT application must identify specific translation errors and support them, for instance by a party-expert report on the particularities of the language, and cannot do so by tendering a rival translation of a single claim. The headnote is on publication: where a defendant has used its own website to create the impression that there has been no infringement, Art. 80 UPCA justifies not only allowing the claimant to publish but ordering the defendant to publish the operative part on that website — here for one month, alongside publication by the claimant in five industry journals. Enforcement security was refused on the same reasoning the division has used before: the R. 158 RoP factors, with the defendant pleading first.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The single cited document does not directly and unambiguously disclose the movable supporting portion or the moving mechanism. The movement could only be read out of the figures with the markings the defendants had added, and the moving mechanism named in the cited claim moves the receiving portion on the apparatus side, not a supporting portion of the container [125]-[140].”
Inventive Step
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The panel accepted the cited document as a realistic starting point but the defendants showed no pointer and offered no argument how one could be derived from it. Even assuming a pointer, the skilled person would not have taken the next step: replacing stationary guiding portions with a movable supporting portion and a moving mechanism needs additional components and yields a costly, complex arrangement, so a choice between two alternatives was not made out [145]-[163].”
Added Matter
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 123(2) EPC · Art. 138(1)(c) EPC
“The location of the discharge opening in the bottom side of the discharging portion is disclosed by the application read as a whole with the figures. The attack on the published English translation of the Japanese PCT application failed: a rival translation of a single claim is not enough, no specific translation error was identified and supported, and the two translations do not necessarily differ in meaning [93]-[122].”