2024-10-10 - LD Düsseldorf - Seoul Viosys v. expert - UPC_CFI_363/2023
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_363/2023
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Düsseldorf (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Proceeding Decision
- Parteien:
- Seoul Viosys Co., Ltd. v. expert e-Commerce GmbH, expert klein GmbH
Kernaussage: The Düsseldorf Local Division gave three headnotes on how a single action against several defendants is run and on when enforcement must be secured.
2024-10-10 - LD Düsseldorf - Seoul Viosys
v.
expert - UPC_CFI_363/2023
notable
The Düsseldorf Local Division gave three headnotes on how a single action against several defendants is run and on when enforcement must be secured. Where one claimant sues several defendants together, the claims stay procedurally independent: each defendant conducts its own case, and neither gains nor loses by what another does. R. 25.1 RoP therefore applies to each defendant separately, so a defendant that files no counterclaim for revocation is formally shut out of the validity argument — a bar with no practical effect while the division declines to separate the proceedings, because revocation on one defendant's counterclaim removes the basis of the whole action. On enforcement security under Art. 82(2) UPCA and R. 118.8 RoP, the division set out a case-by-case balance and held that the factors are established exactly as on a R. 158 RoP application, with the defendant pleading first. On the merits the patent survived the added-matter and inventive-step attacks and was held literally infringed; the objection to the two earlier priority claims succeeded but moved nothing.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCInventive Step
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Both inventive-step attacks failed. Starting from D 3 (US 2005/0067624 A1) the skilled person looking for a material for its barrier layer finds palladium or platinum in D 5 (EP 1 806 790 A2), and D 5 also teaches that silver and palladium have almost equal expansion coefficients so that thermal stress hardly arises — which removes any reason to look for a stress-relieving layer and leaves the skilled person with a two-layer stack [808]-[812]. Starting from Fig. 3 of D 2 (US 2009/0283787 A1), whether alone or with D 1, the reflective electrode is missing and is shown only in Fig. 2, a separate self-contained embodiment; combining two embodiments of one document needs a reason, and Fig. 3 already provides a hybrid mirror through the reflective cathode contact [814]-[847].”
Added Matter
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 123(2) EPC · Art. 138(1)(c) EPC
“The Art. 138(1)(c) with Art. 123(2) EPC ground failed [680]-[722]. Claim 1 never mentions mesas, only mesa-etched areas, and Figure 24 of the published application shows hole-shaped mesa-etched areas including near the edge, from which openings in the lower insulating layer follow necessarily [700]-[708]. The disclosure as a whole also states that the barrier metal layer 'may' cover the upper and the side surface of the reflective metal layer, so the side coverage described in the preferred embodiment is an option, not a requirement [710]-[722].”
Priority
Patent invalid (this ground)Art. 87 EPC · derivative
“The objection to the two earlier priority claims succeeded and the claimant did not contest it. KR 20110009396 discloses neither a stress-relieving layer nor its coefficient of thermal expansion, and KR 20120015758 discloses neither an upper insulating layer nor a stress-relieving layer, so neither priority is validly claimed and the effective date is 17 May 2012 [750]-[754]. The shift did not affect the outcome, because the prior art relied on predates all three priority dates.”
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).