UPC CFI, LD Munich, 28 November 2025: on late filed invailidity arguments
08-04-2026 Print this page
Counterclaim for revocation dismissed (Article 65 UPCA).
Direct patent infringement (Article 25 UPCA).
Standing to sue of claimant as registered proprietor (R. 8.5 RoP). No handwritten signature completely corresponds to another signature of the same individual; person signing is a Chinese citizen and therefore reasonably is used to sign with Chinese characters and not with Latin characters.
Sufficient allegation and substantiation of the infringement action (R. 13.1(n) RoP). Explanations with regard to claim construction not mandatory (“where appropriate”). If all contested embodiments are identical in construction in the relevant features, a uniform presentation for all products of this series is sufficiently substantiated.
No added matter (Article 138(1)(c) EPC). Claim 1 does not contain features from different embodiments: Figure 8 shows all the features present in claim 1.
No lack of enabling disclosure (Article 138(1)(b) EPC) in view of description and drawings.
Late filed combination of documents D28 and D31 challenging inventive step (R. 25 RoP): Not in the Counterclaim for Revocation but in the Reply to the defence. Late filed arguments regarding D8. Not accepted on its own as a basis for a validity attack. According to the Counterclaim, the defendants still considered it necessary to combine D8 with D22 in order to demonstrate a lack of inventive step. Defendant’s argument regarding a combination of D8 and common general knowledge is not a response to claimant's submission.
Inventive step – no incentive (Article 56 EPC). The skilled person would have to flip the entire construction of the solar cell of D7 around to transform it into a front junction solar cell, the skilled person has no reason to do so, since D7 precisely proposes an improved back junction solar cell.
