In a recent judgment dated November 29, 2016 (docket no. 2 O 44/16), the Regional Court of Mannheim ruled that SCHWIND eye-tech-solutions GmbH & Co. KG is infringing the German part of the European Patent 1 428 470 relating to an apparatus for determining and ablating a corneal tissue volume of a receiving cornea for corneal lamellar grafting transplantation, the patent proprietor being the Italian company IVIS TECHNOLOGIES S.r.l.
The European Patent 1 428 470 owned by IVIS TECHNOLOGIES S.r.l. constitutes a fundamental milestone in teaching how to realize a system to automate and customize the corneal lamellar transplantation to standardize the surgical procedure and optimize quality of vision.
SCHWIND was ordered, inter alia, to cease manufacturing, offering for sale and distributing in Germany a combination of the modules AMARIS (laser system), SIRIUS (pachymeter system), and PALK-CAM (software), which falls under the scope of protection of patent claim 1. Furthermore, the Regional Court of Mannheim decided not to stay the infringement proceedings because it could not find a prevailing likelihood that the patent-in-suit will be revoked in the pending opposition proceedings (docket no. T0747/15-3.2.02).
The Defendant still has the option of filing an appeal to the Higher Regional Court of Karlsruhe against the judgment. The judgment is provisionally enforceable against provision of a security by IVIS in the amount of EUR 300,000.- with respect to the claim for injunctive relief, or EUR 50,000.- each with respect to the claims for information and rendering of accounts, recall and removal from the distribution channels, and destruction.
IVIS TECHNOLOGIES S.r.l. was represented for the present case by BARDEHLE PAGENBERG law firm. For further details, the judgment of the Regional Court of Mannheim can be viewed here Judgment of 2016Nov29.pdf.
Particular features of the proceedings:
The Italian counterpart of the patent-in-suit was asserted in parallel infringement proceedings before the Tribunale Torino (docket no. 24794/2012) by IVIS against SCHWIND and the infringement complaint was dismissed by the Tribunale in first instance.