Analytics 97Cases 40Decisions 40Judges 54Parties 30Firms

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Legal issues

Cross-cutting view of legal principles, recurring arguments, and the prior art the court relies on.

Most-litigated legal principles

Recurring legal principles across 1 cases with reasoning extracted. Success rate counts patentee-favorable outcomes only.

Principle	Cases	Decided	Patentee success
common general knowledge definition: information commonly known from written sources or practical experience in the relevant technical field	1	1	100%
cgk does not necessarily include all publicly available knowledge	1	1	100%
problem-solution approach applied: skilled person must have motivation to consult prior art from a different technical field	1	1	100%
power consumption constraints relevant to assessing whether cross-field combination is obvious	1	1	100%
non-appearance at oral hearing in pi proceedings: merits decision not limited to default judgment	1	1	100%
duty to substantively contest specific factual allegations under r. 171.2 rop	1	1	100%
general denial insufficient where applicant provides specific supporting facts	1	1	100%
contested facts deemed undisputed if defendant fails to specifically deny them	1	1	100%
doctrine of equivalents requires technical-functional equivalence: substitute means must fulfil essentially the same function to achieve essentially the same effect	1	1	0%
front-loaded upc procedure requires parties to submit all facts and evidence as early as possible (r. 25.1 rop; preamble rop 7)	1	1	0%
timeliness of prior-art evidence: late submission requires reasonable justification	1	1	0%
a commercial brochure is evaluated as a stand-alone document; the physical product it advertises is not its disclosure	1	1	0%
authentic text of a european patent is the language of grant (art. 70(1) epc) regardless of the language of proceedings	1	1	0%
defendant's alternative request for partial maintenance without specifying a particular claim is admissible and obliges the court to examine which dependent claims remain valid (art. 65(3) upca)	1	1	0%
dependent claims can acquire independent validity in combination with an invalid independent claim	1	1	0%
common general knowledge of on/off switches and activation buttons in electronic devices supports obviousness of such features	1	1	0%
front-loaded procedure: claimant in revocation must specify all invalidity grounds and prior art in the statement of revocation; new grounds and novelty-destroying documents may not be introduced in subsequent briefs unless responsive to defendant's defence	1	1	0%
proportionality and procedural efficiency: parties should not be burdened with overly detailed allegations of undisputed matters	1	1	0%
patent specification or published patent application can indicate common general knowledge when the author states the teaching is widely known	1	1	0%
partial maintenance request must be substantiated and reasonable in number; bare unsubstantiated reference to combinations is insufficient (r.30(1)(c), r.50(2) rop)	1	1	0%

Most-rejected arguments

Arguments that the UPC has not accepted, ranked by repeat occurrences across cases.

Argument	Party	Cases
defendant's submission of 31 may 2024 (inadmissible late submission)	Respondent	2
claim 1 obvious over cross or pan combined with difonzo	Claimant	1
claim 1 obvious over pan combined with common general knowledge	Claimant	1
remaining aspects of application (not specified in available excerpt)	Claimant	1
accused 'tray2go' product infringes the patent under the doctrine of equivalents via variant a (gradual transgression of second stiffening portion)	Claimant	1
physical product obtained from a commercial brochure can establish the brochure's prior-art disclosure	Respondent	1
claims should be construed based on english translation rather than the german-language authentic text	Claimant	1
patent should be maintained as granted (claim 1 valid)	Respondent	1
auxiliary requests to amend the patent overcome invalidity of claim 1	Respondent	1
dependent claims 2, 3, 4 and 5 have independent validity	Respondent	1
patent valid: claim 1 and all dependent claims are not obvious	Respondent	1
partial maintenance: patent should be maintained to the extent of one or more dependent claims in combination with claim 1 of proposed amendments	Respondent	1
auxiliary requests iia, viia, viiia, ixa and xiia filed on 13 november 2024	Respondent	1
patent valid as granted: claim 1 meets clarity and added matter requirements	Respondent	1
thirteen auxiliary requests (including conditional request (2)d. for 'one or more dependent claims as granted in combination with claim 1 of auxiliary request 1')	Respondent	1

Most-cited prior art

References relied on across substantive merits cases, with the role they typically play.

Reference	Predominant role	Cases
Cross	Obviousness combination	1
Pan	Obviousness combination	1
DiFonzo	Obviousness combination	1
Pan (prior art document — e-cigarette/vaporizer with airflow sensor activation)	Obviousness combination	1
Cross (prior art document — vaporizer device with microcontroller and user activation switch)	Obviousness combination	1
Griffith (prior art document — electronic smoking device with pushbutton activation)	Obviousness combination	1
Pan (prior art document — vaporizer/e-cigarette with airflow sensor and liquid)	Novelty-destroying	1