UPC CFI, LD Mannheim, 31 January 2025: Patent lacks inventive step - teaching of D3 and general technical knowledge

Patent in suit declared null and void (Article 65 UPCA). 

Person skilled in the art (Article 56 EPC) is a mechanical engineer (Dipl.-Ing. (FH) or B. of Eng.) who has several years of professional experience in the development and construction of mills for grinding material. 

Product claim 1 lacks novelty (Article 54 EPC). All the features of device claim 1 are directly and unambiguously known from document D3. 

Product claim 1 lacks an inventive step (Article 56 EPC). If the panel's interpretation of feature 1d) is not followed, but instead a more extensive radial supply and removal of all the ground material through the corresponding openings is required, then D3 would not be novelty-destroying. However, in this case there would be no inventive step, since feature 1d) then results in an obvious way for the person skilled in the art from D3. The skilled person is first taught by the D3 that ‘the inlet and outlet openings can be provided practically anywhere in the direction of rotation of the rotor, one after the other, around the circumference of the rotor in the housing’ (page 11, 3rd paragraph, lines 19 to 21). For the person skilled in the art, the question as to how the inlet and outlet ports connected to the openings should be aligned in a meaningful way thus arises at the next stage, so to speak, when putting it into practice. In this respect, however, D3 opens up several options for the person skilled in the art that are in any case within his or her general technical grasp. 

Process claim 15 lacks an inventive step. The alignment of the discharge opening in the sense addressed by feature 15f and explained above lies here to the same extent in his general technical knowledge and, in addition, the ground material is discharged in one direction due to gravity, which can be addressed as being essentially radially oriented.

IPPT20250131, UPC CFI, LD Mannheim, Rematec v Europe Forestry