EPLAW Patent Blog

DE - Steuervorrichtung (Control Device)

German Federal Supreme Court, 18 May 2010, Docket No. X ZR 79/07

The inventor acquires a right in a confidentially materialized teaching of a technical nature when such teaching was made the subject matter of a patent application, independently of the patentability of that subject matter. The applicant or owner of the patent has to surrender to the inventor the value of its use of the invention which he has made in the preferential situation of having knowledge of the invention, and/or of being the applicant or owner of a corresponding patent.

Read the decision (in German) here.

Read the summary (in English) here.

Headnote and summary: Tilman Mueller-Stoy

DE - German Supreme Court "Fentanyl TTS"

German Supreme Court, 18 November 2010, docket no. Xa ZR 149/07 - "Fentanyl TTS".

In the case at issue the preamble of independent claim 1 stipulated that the claimed system comprised "at least one Fentanyl containing matrix layer" whereas the characterizing portion only addressed the concentration of this active compound in the "matrix layers" of the claimed system. In light of this inconsistency (singular/plural), the Federal Patents Court reduced the scope of independent claim 1 to systems comprising multiple matrix layers. In sum, according to the Federal Patents Court the characterizing portion of the claim takes precedence over the preamble.

DE – Walzenformgebungsmaschine

Federal Supreme Court, Germany, 15. April 2010, Case No. Xa ZB 10/09

The German Federal Supreme Court had to decide on an appeal against the cancellation of a utility model which was derived from a European Patent. The Federal Patent Court (previous instance) had cancelled the utility model without considering the decision of the European Patent Office, which upheld the respective European patent in amended form.