KURZMITTEILUNGEN
20. December 2012
German Patent Law
In the decision “MPEG-2-Videosignalcodierung” - X ZR 33/10, dated
August 21, 2012, the German Federal Court of Justice heard a case
concerning the encoding and decoding of video signals. The litigated
patents relate to methods and apparatuses for encoding, transferring,
storing and decoding video signals, such as those used e.g. when
producing and reading a DVD under the international MPEG-2 standard. All
patents concerned were part of a patent pool which the defendant had
not licensed.
The Court held that video image data can be considered
as a product directly obtained by a production method and as such can
enjoy product protection under §9, 2nd Sentence, No. 3 of the German
Patent Act (corresponding to Art. 64 (2) EPC).
The Court further
decided that in case a data sequence is considered to be a product
directly obtained by a patented video encoding/decoding method, the
conferred product protection also encompasses any data carrier on which
the data sequence obtained by the patented method is stored or which
represents a copy of such a data carrier (e.g. a copy of a master disc).
Finally,
the Court decided that an optical data carrier containing data that is
suitable for conversion by means of a patented decoding method, cannot –
merely due to this suitability (Eignung) - be considered as “means
relating to an essential element" of the decoding method under Section
10 German Patent Act, which defines indirect infringement.
In the
specific case, the Court dismissed the lawsuit, since the copies
produced by the defendant were copies of a master disc lawfully obtained
from the patentee. Accordingly, the Court held that the patent rights
in question had been exhausted.
The full text of the decision, in German language, can be downloaded at
https://downloads-mueller-bore.de/index.php?id=2520&pwd=aa6025f3d411667910415f42927345b3
Should you have any questions please feel free to contact schiuma@mueller-bore.de
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