Law applied:
EPC Art. 69 para. 1
PatG Section 14
Summary (Machine translation):
Features of a claim shall be interpreted in accordance with the function assigned to them by the invention.
Federal Supreme Court (BGH), Judgment of July 9, 2024 – X ZR 72/22 –
Download Judgment (machine translation)
Comment C&F:
In its “Scales” decision (X ZR 72/22), the Federal Court of Justice (Bundesgerichtshof – BGH) highlighted the function-oriented interpretation of patent claims. As a result of this interpretation, the Court found significant differences to the closest prior art. At the same time, the Federal Court of Justice made it clear that a purely grammatical interpretation of a patent claim – as in this specific case – can lead to an isolated approach. This may be contradictory to the function that the feature in question fulfils.
With this ruling, the Federal Court of Justice is clarifying an important principle of interpretation that is also common practice at the Düsseldorf court. From the patent holder’s point of view, it therefore appears sensible to describe the function of individual features in detail when drafting the patent specification. As the ruling shows, this can be of crucial importance not only in the course of patent infringement proceedings, but also in revocation suits.
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Our commentary on the above judgment serves the purpose of making it easily accessible. Simplifications and incompleteness are due to this purpose. For a complete understanding, please refer to the original German version of the publication of the judgment.