2025-01-20 - LD Munich - Abbott v. DexCom - CC_586829/2023
- Aktenzeichen:
- CC_586829/2023
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Munich (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Proceeding Decision
- Parteien:
- Abbott s.r.l., Abbott Diabetes Care Inc., Abbott (S.A./N.V.), Abbott Scandinavia Aktiebolag, Abbott Logistics B.V., Abbott Laboratories, Abbott France (S.A.S.), Abbott Diagnostics GmbH, Abbott B.V., Abbott GmbH v. DexCom Inc.
Kernaussage: The Munich LD revoked EP 3 797 685 B1 in its entirety for lack of inventive step over Berman (D12) combined with common general knowledge, and dismissed all infringement claims as a consequence.
2025-01-20 - LD Munich - Abbott
v.
DexCom - CC_586829/2023
landmark
The Munich LD revoked EP 3 797 685 B1 in its entirety for lack of inventive step over Berman (D12) combined with common general knowledge, and dismissed all infringement claims as a consequence. Although the claim's use of two distinct communication protocols (BLE for broadcast, NFC/RFID for on-demand) was found to be novel — Berman did not directly and unambiguously disclose the need for two different protocols — the Munich panel held that selecting BLE for broadcast and NFC/RFID for on-demand transmission was an obvious design choice in view of the well-known energy-efficiency trade-offs among the candidate protocols. The Court applied the Court of Appeal's inventive-step methodology (UPC_CoA_335/2023), asking first whether the prior art would have been of interest to a skilled person addressing the objective technical problem (optimizing energy consumption of a CGM system), and then whether the step to the claimed solution was obvious. Both auxiliary requests — which added connection-establishment and NFC-assisted pairing features — were held not to involve an inventive step over Berman supplemented by common general knowledge on NFC-assisted Bluetooth pairing. The Munich LD followed the Paris LD's revocation of parent patent EP '866 (UPC_CFI_230/2023) on substantially the same prior art and rejected the contrary reasoning of the EPO Opposition Division.
Nichtigkeitsgründe
Art. 138 EPCNovelty
Patent survived (this ground)Art. 54 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Claim 1 was found NOT to be anticipated by Berman (D12): Berman discloses two types of data transfer (periodic/on-demand) and lists multiple candidate protocols for each, but does not directly and unambiguously require two different protocols for the two transfers. Novelty attack rejected (but the patent fell on inventive step).”
Inventive Step
Patent invalid (this ground)Art. 56 EPC · Art. 138(1)(a) EPC
“Applying the CoA methodology (UPC_CoA_335/2023), the Court held that selecting BLE for broadcast and NFC/RFID for on-demand was an obvious design choice driven by well-known energy-efficiency considerations; auxiliary requests adding connection/pairing features were likewise obvious in view of common general knowledge on NFC-assisted Bluetooth pairing.”