Linco Food Systems A/S v. Meyn Food Processing Technology B.V., Supreme Court, Copenhagen, Denmark, 3 December 2009, Docket No. 313/2005
The Danish Supreme Court dismissed Meyn's claim against Linco Food Systems and declared Meyn's patent invalid.
Meyn was granted a patent on a device which cleanses out the intestines of poultry during slaughtering.The enforcement court in Denmark granted an injunction based on the aforementioned patent against a Danish company (Linco Food Systems) which manufactured a similar device. The injunction was upheld on appeal. In the confirmatory action the High Court ruled in favor of the patentee, prohibiting the Danish company from producing and selling the device. In addition, the Danish company was ordered to compensate the patentee financially.
On appeal, the Danish company submitted a US patent from 1957 regarding a procedure for removing intestines from poultry. This lead to the patentee filing an application for a limitation on the original patent application’s first claim pursuant to Article 105a of the European Patent Convention. The Supreme Court found the original patent application claim to lack novelty in the light of the US patent.
The Danish company argued that the limited patent lacked inventive step, as the skilled person was likely to combine the procedure from the US patent with the patented device. The court followed the claim of the Danish company and, based on this, found that the patent-in-suit was invalid (cf. the Danish Patent Act § 52 (1)(1) combined with § 2 (1) as well as article 138 (1)(a) of the EPC).
Read an extended summary (in Danish) here.
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