{"id":3900,"date":"2016-01-22T17:30:00","date_gmt":"2016-01-22T16:30:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/literal-patent-infringement-contrary-to-lexically-narrower-meaning-bgh-judgment-luftklappensystem\/"},"modified":"2025-11-01T14:42:30","modified_gmt":"2025-11-01T13:42:30","slug":"literal-patent-infringement-contrary-to-lexically-narrower-meaning-bgh-judgment-luftklappensystem","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/literal-patent-infringement-contrary-to-lexically-narrower-meaning-bgh-judgment-luftklappensystem\/","title":{"rendered":"Literal patent infringement contrary to lexically narrower meaning (BGH judgment “Luftklappensystem”)"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

When determining the scope of protection, it is not sufficient to determine the lexical meaning of the claim wording. What matters is the technical meaning of the feature in the context of the solution according to the invention. This is a generally recognized principle of German jurisprudence. How is this principle applied if the claim speaks of “blocked” air flow, whereas the attacked embodiment only realizes a “reduced” air flow? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n

In the dispute that ended up before the Federal Court of Justice (X ZR 74\/14), the question was whether the patent claim is also infringed if the feature “blocking the air flow through the ventilation duct”<\/em> is only used in the sense that the air flow through the ventilation duct is not completely prevented, but only throttled.<\/p>\n\n

The Patents dealt with a paint spray gun with a central outlet for the paint spray jet and with molded spray channels directed laterally into the paint spray jet. In order to prevent the blower from being overloaded when the spray channels are throttled or closed, at least one additional venting channel was provided which does not affect the paint spray jet. <\/p>\n\n

The patent claim spoke of a “blocking device” with two positions b1 and b2. In the first position (b1), the air flow through the mold channel should be blocked and released through the vent channel. And in the second position (b2), conversely, the air should be released through the mold channel and blocked by the vent channel. <\/p>\n\n

The accused embodiment had four venting channels, which were not completely blocked in position b2 of the blocking device, but still allowed a small amount of air to pass through. The plaintiff claimed that this was a literal or at least equivalent patent infringement. <\/p>\n\n

The Mannheim Regional Court and the Karlsruhe Higher Regional Court dismissed the Lawsuit. There was no literal infringement. <\/p>\n\n

According to common usage, “block” means that the path is closed off, i.e. closed. No other meaning is apparent from the patent specification. When assessing the prior art, a distinction is made between “blocking” and “restricting” (“blocked or restricted”). Moreover, the invention description always uses the opposites “permitted” and “blocked”. And in the embodiment examples, it is a matter of redirecting the air flow between the shaping channel and the venting channel. The venting channels must therefore all be closed if the shaping channel is open. The court saw no basis for an equivalent infringement. <\/p>\n\n

The Federal Court of Justice (BGH) disagreed and overturned the judgment of the Higher Regional Court.<\/p>\n\n

It is correct to start from the general linguistic meaning of a word when determining the literal meaning of the claim. However, it is wrong to only ask whether the patent specification provides indications of a different meaning. <\/p>\n\n

Rather, it must be examined whether the interpretation (e.g. according to the general linguistic meaning) is compatible with the relevant technical meaning of the feature in the context of solving the task at hand.<\/p>\n\n

In the case in dispute, position b2 of the blocking device does not necessarily require complete blocking; partial blocking may be sufficient. In the introduction to the description, the terms “blocked” and “restricted” are only placed next to each other and are not differentiated from each other. They are both presented as the cause of the disadvantageous effects in the prior art. <\/p>\n\n

The fact that the rest of the description only refers to “blocking” is not an indication that the difference between “blocking” and “throttling” is important.<\/p>\n\n

As a result, the BGH comes to the conclusion that there is a literal infringement.<\/p>\n\n

This judgment is appropriate. The interpretation of the claim should be based on the technical meaning of a feature and not only on the lexical meaning. However, interpreting the scope of protection is not easy if you always have to consider whether a “partial” use of a word also constitutes an identical infringement. <\/p>\n\n

Links: juris.bundesgerichtshof.de\/cgi-bin\/rechtsprechung\/document.py<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When determining the scope of protection, it is not sufficient to determine the lexical meaning of the claim wording. What matters is the technical meaning of the feature in the context of the solution according to the invention. This is a generally recognized principle of German jurisprudence. How is this principle applied if the claim […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3900","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nicht-kategorisiert"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3900"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3900\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3900"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3900"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/klunker-ip.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3900"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}