On July 23, 2024, the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) addressed the matter of the interpretation of patent claims. In its ruling X ZR 88/22, the judges in Karlsruhe held that features of a patent claim must be linked to the context of the overall disclosure of a patent specification. At the same time, they used the decision to emphasize the function-oriented interpretation of patent claims (see Federal Court of Justice ruling “Scales” – X ZR 72/22). Here, the Court held that the features of a patent claim must be “interpreted in accordance with the function they serve in the context of the invention.”
The case concerned a patent for a system suitable for “stereophotogrammetry,” which is an imaging technique used in plastic surgery, among other things. The claimant was of the opinion that the subject matter concerned was not patentable.
With its ruling, the Federal Court of Justice confirmed an important principle of interpretation, on which Düsseldorf Regional Court (Landgericht) also bases its case law. “The function-oriented interpretation of features of a patent claim can therefore also play an important role in revocation suits and represent a distinction from the prior art,” say Svenja Schwandt and Dr. Peter Drabo from Cohausz & Florack. “Patent holders would do well to describe the functionality of the listed features in detail when drafting patent claims.”
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