Hewlett-Packard v LAMA (UPC_CFI_358/2023)

• HP brought an infringement claim against LAMA in relation to two patents concerning printer cartridges (EP 230 and EP 669) in the Paris LD. LAMA contested the infringement and filed a counterclaim for invalidity.
• In interpreting the claims of the patents, the Paris LD applied the principles of claim construction laid out by the Court of Appeal in 10x Genomics v Nanostring.
• EP 230 was held to lack novelty as granted. To form part of the state of the art and to be lacking novelty, the invention must be found entirely in a single prior art document. EP 230 was also found to lack inventive step based on HP's conditional amendments and therefore its amendment request was rejected.
• EP 669 was held to be valid and infringed. When assessing infringement before 1 June 2023, it was not relevant to refer to sources of national law. The substantive source of law is Articles 25-26 UPCA.
• It was decided that each party would bear 50% of the costs as one patent asserted succeeded and the other failed.

This analysis is based on a machine translation of a decision not available in English.