Mechanical Engineering

Mechanical engineering is a broad concept that includes many different technologies and specialties, but plainly spoken it deals with anything that moves. Specialized mechanical engineering subjects include biomechanics, cartilage-tissue engineering, energy conversion, laser-assisted materials processing, combustion, MEMS, microfluidic devices, fracture mechanics, nanomechanics, mechanisms, micropower generation, tribology (friction and wear), and vibrations.

Germany, Inventive step, Mechanical Engineering, Novelty, Validity

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

The Federal Court of Justice (FCJ) in Germany has held in its recent “Dentalgerätesatz” decision that claim 1 of EP 892 625 is novel since it claimed a new functional adaptation of otherwise known elements to serve a certain purpose. In doing so, the FCJ reversed the first-instance decision of the Federal Patent Court.

Case Law, Germany, Inventive step, Mechanical Engineering, Opposition

(Hoffmann Eitle)/

The decision of the Board of Appeal of the European Patent Office which revokes a European patent due to lack of inventive step, is a supra-national legal instrument which can be the object of a complaint to the German Constitutional Court. Such complaints are only admissible if the protection of fundamental rights is no longer…

Case Law, Extent of Protection, Mechanical Engineering, Scope of protection, United Kingdom

/

The Court of Appeal overturned a decision of the High Court and held that the act of replacing Shutz’s bottles in Shutz’s outer protective cages with Werit’s bottles constituted ’ making’  products protected by Shutz’s patent, which encompassed both the bottle and the cage. Click here for the full text of this case. A full summary…

Case Law, Mechanical Engineering, Novelty, Opposition, Revocation, Slovenia, Validity

/

The Court held that in order to decide that a patented invention is novel, it is not sufficient that the wording in the patent description is different from the wording in the prior art. The technical subject-matter of the prior art must be different. Moreover, it had to be assessed whether publicly accessible information could…

Case Law, Disclaimer, EPC, Exceptions to patentability, Mechanical Engineering

(V.O.)/

1. The Enlarged Board of Appeal considered the meaning that is to be given to the exclusion of patents on methods for ‘treatment by surgery’ (Article 53(c) EPC). The current construction used by the boards and the EPO as any non-significant intervention on the structure of an organism by conservative procedures was found to be…

(Indirect) infringement, Case Law, Equivalents, Mechanical Engineering, Netherlands

(Brinkhof)/

The District Court of The Hague held that Abbott does not infringe Medinol’s patent. According to the Court there is also no reason to accept infringement by equivalence, since the meander patterns in the infringing embodiment fulfill another function than the claimed ‘second meander patterns’ as further explained in the patent in suit. This means…

Case Law, Extent of Protection, Mechanical Engineering, Scope of protection, United Kingdom

(Bristows)/

The Court of Appeal has overturned a decision of the High Court in finding Virgin’s patent for an aircraft seating system to be valid and infringed. The Court of Appeal’s judgment is of particular interest as it concerns the skilled person and general principles of claim construction. According to the Court of Appeal, the skilled…

Case Law, EPC, Extension of subject matter, Mechanical Engineering

(V.O.)/

A claim violates Article 123(2) EPC when an added claim term has two reasonable interpretations, one of which violates article 123(2) EPC. An amendment selecting the interpretation that does not violate Article 123(2) is not allowed during opposition because of Article 123(3) EPC. In the view of the Board the proprietor should not be able…

Added matter, Case Law, Germany, Mechanical Engineering

/

The Federal Court of Justice confirmed the legal reasoning of the Federal Patent Court that a company that continued the business of another company, while it was founded independently from the continued company and does not take over the trade name under which it conducted business, is not bound by a non-contest clause between the…