UPC CFI 151/2024

Application dismissed for lack of urgency — applicant waited almost three months after acquiring knowledge of alleged infringement before taking decisive investigative steps

Hinweis: Hamburg LD confirmed that once a patent proprietor has knowledge of alleged infringement, it must investigate promptly; a delay of nearly three months without significant clarification efforts is incompatible with urgency.

Connected Ball Technology uses accelerometer-based SVM processing, not sound-signal sensing and comparison as claimed

Hinweis: Court found it could not conclude that the attacked embodiment compares sensed signals to training data of predetermined signals as claimed; SVM does not contain training data, and accelerometer data is fundamentally different from sound signals.

Acceleration measurement is not an equivalent to sensing a sound signal produced by the ball

Hinweis: Description at [0037] discloses acceleration as an additional measurement, not an equivalent alternative to sound sensing; the patent does not teach substituting acceleration for sound.

Connected Ball Technology infringes the patent by using sensor data to determine ball contact

Begründung: Claimant could not prove the embodiment processes sound signals or compares them to predetermined sound signals; the SVM uses accelerometer data, not sound signals, and does not retain training data for comparison.

Infringement by equivalents — accelerometer processing equivalent to sound-signal comparison

Begründung: For equivalence, what matters is how the technical effect is achieved, not merely that an effect (determining ball contact) is produced; acceleration data processing in a SVM is not equivalent to comparing sound signals to predetermined sound signals.

Auxiliary requests based on amended claims (adding acceleration sensing) establish infringement

Begründung: The auxiliary feature requiring acceleration sensing (1.2a/8.2a) uses the word 'additionally', meaning both sound and acceleration sensors are needed; the attacked embodiment has only an accelerometer, not a separate sound sensor.