Düsseldorf, December 7, 2022 – Egger Holzwerkstoffe Brilon GmbH & Co. KG was victorious in a nullity suit against REHAU Automotive SE & Co. in the second instance before the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof). The suit essentially concerned a “process for manufacturing a decorated profile body” (EP 2 247 451) patented by Rehau, which can be used as an edge profile for furniture parts or interior fittings, for example. The patent has been declared legally invalid by the Federal Court of Justice ruling of November 10, 2022.
“We were able to convince the Federal Court of Justice that the process resulted from the reworking of a previously known prior art and that the corresponding European patent was therefore wrongly granted,” says patent attorney Dr. Henning Sternemann, who represented the Egger Group along with patent attorney Dr. Thomas Rox (both Cohausz & Florack) and attorneys-at-law Dr. Horn and Dr. Dethof (both Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek).
With the Court’s most recent decision, a patent infringement case against Egger running in parallel has been rendered moot. Here, the court of first instance had already ruled that edge bands produced by the Austrian manufacturer of wood-based materials did not infringe on the patent in several points. Heuking and C&F have been working as a team for Egger for over 20 years and have been able to refute every allegation of patent infringement before the courts to date.
“We are delighted that these proceedings ended with a positive outcome for us once again, with the help of the expertise of our patent attorneys and attorneys-at-law. Being sued over a patent right is a risk that every company takes. We are therefore glad that we can count on a highly specialized team,” says Gerold Schneider, IP Manager of the EGGER Group.
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