UPC_CFI_202/2024
DISPENSING APPARATUS
Lindal Dispenser GmbH brought a revocation action against Rocep-Lusol Holdings Limited's EP 3 655 346 B1, a patent for a pressure pack dispenser for viscous materials. The Central Division Paris rejected the revocation action but maintained the patent only in amended form per Rocep-Lusol's First Auxiliary Request, establishing that an invention violating accepted laws of physics lacks industrial application and that drawings cannot override an unambiguous description. Costs were apportioned 70% to Lindal and 30% to Rocep-Lusol.
Patent as amended by First Auxiliary Request can be maintained (limitations cure original defects)
BeklagterRechtsgrundlage: Art. 57 EPC; Art. 138 EPCHinweis: Rocep-Lusol's First Auxiliary Request narrowed the claims sufficiently to overcome the industrial-application objection and the revocation action was dismissed on that basis.
Drawings cannot be used to extract a claim feature when definitively and unambiguously contradicted by the description
BeklagterHinweis: The court articulated this as a headnote principle and applied it in claim construction, limiting the interpretive weight given to figures.
EP 3 655 346 B1 as granted is invalid for lack of industrial application
KlägerRechtsgrundlage: Art. 57 EPCBegründung: The court accepted the invalidity argument in relation to the patent as granted, but the revocation action was dismissed because the patent was maintained in amended form via the First Auxiliary Request rather than fully revoked.
Weitere Fälle zu diesem Grundsatz ansehen.
The court held that drawings must always be used as explanatory aids for interpreting claims but cannot be used to extract a claim feature when the description definitively and unambiguously contradicts the drawing. This was applied in construing the pressure pack dispenser's composite piston arrangement.