2025-06-06 - LD Munich - Tiroler Rohre v. SSAB - UPC_CFI_324/2024
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_324/2024
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Munich (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Proceeding Decision
- Parteien:
- Tiroler Rohre GmbH v. SSAB Swedish Steel GmbH, SSAB Europe Oy
Kernaussage: The Munich Local Division upheld a pile-shoe patent in the limited form of an auxiliary request and found infringement of that limited claim.
2025-06-06 - LD Munich - Tiroler Rohre
v.
SSAB - UPC_CFI_324/2024
notable
The Munich Local Division upheld a pile-shoe patent in the limited form of an auxiliary request and found infringement of that limited claim. Its two headnotes concern proof. Where the defendant resists infringement by asserting that use of the teaching is impossible for reasons lying outside the claim, it bears the burden of pleading and proving that assertion under Art. 54 UPCA; the claimant need not plead the design of components the claim does not cover, and it is enough that it shows every claim feature realised. Second, where a device has the suitability the claim requires, it is irrelevant whether the patented properties and effects are achieved regularly, only exceptionally or only by chance, and whether the user intends them. Applied here, the defendants' case that no pile could reach the groove floor of the attacked shoes failed: they gave no minimum wall thickness for any pile diameter against the relevant parameters, so their assertion remained a supposition, and a supposition is neither a pleadable statement of fact nor proof. On validity the panel applied the EPO problem-solution approach and said openly that it regards divergent standards under one legal basis as problematic for legal certainty.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Partially invalid (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Claim 1 as granted does not survive: the prior art shows the clamping connection reached by clamping the lower end of the pile tube into the inner recess, without any need for welding, screws, bolts or rivets, and the claimant did not dispute the remaining features [V.2]. In the version of auxiliary request 3 the claim is novel, because a closed annulus cannot be brought under the formation of circular segments, which the claim wording expressly requires and whose function is to let concrete escape between the segments [V.3.b].”
Inventive Step
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“The attack on auxiliary request 3 fails [V.3.c]. The second document concerns a drill string, where interlocking projections and recesses serve primarily to transmit rotation, not to make room for concrete outlets; adopting them would require modifying the pile tube end, losing the very advantage of avoiding manipulation of the pile, and would demand careful alignment on site. Nor does that document disclose or suggest the 40° to 120° arc, giving neither dimensions nor angular spacing for its six projections. The defendants' reasoning rests on hindsight with knowledge of the invention.”
Inoffiziell
Inoffizielle KI-Übersetzung
Dies ist eine automatische, von KI erstellte Übersetzung, die Fehler enthalten kann. Rechtsverbindlich ist allein das Originaldokument in der Verfahrenssprache (German).