[Confidential] v Essetre (UPC_CFI_239/2024)
Decision date:
28 July 2025
Osborne Clarke summary
- A confidential claimant filed a revocation action against Essetre in the Paris CD, arguing that Essetre's patent relating to a machine for machining walls was invalid for lack of novelty, lack of inventive step, lack of clarity and added matter. Essetre had made an application to amend the patent as a principal, unconditional request and various auxiliary requests.
- In considering claim construction, the Paris CD confirmed the role of contextual factors in interpreting terms in patent documents. While the patent claim is the decisive basis for determining the protective scope of a European patent, the description and drawings must always be used as explanatory aids for interpretation of the claim. While terms used in patent documents should be given their normal meaning in the relevant art, the description and drawings, in the context of the contents of the documents and not in isolation, may give terms a different meaning. As such, they may represent the patent's "own lexicon". This assessment must be carried from the perspective of the skilled person.
- The case related to a patent for a machine for machining walls and, in particular, walls made of wood or multilayer walls. Claim 1 (feature 1.2) included reference to "a working surface for resting a wall". Essetre argued that the reference to "a working surface" should be interpreted to mean "one working surface". The claimant disputed this, arguing that this feature should be interpreted as part of an open list, and that the claim leaves open the question of how many working surfaces should be configured.
- The court held that the ordinary context of the phrase, along with the context of the description and drawings of the patent, showed that the phrase should be interpreted as meaning "one working surface". In reaching its decision, the court held that the skilled person would understand from the patent documents that there would be a single working surface formed by two sub-surfaces. In addition, the court noted that throughout the patent the phrase "the working surface" always appeared in the singular.
- In light of the court's claim interpretation, it ultimately rejected the claimant's invalidity arguments. The patent was maintained in amended form (the principal amendment) and Essetre's auxiliary requests were deemed moot and not considered further.
Issue
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