The owner of the French patent No. 05 09004 relating to a display screen support, accused the company SKF EQUIPMENT SA to have infringe its patent.

The Court finds, first, that the invention covered by claim 1 of the patent could be made without requiring more than the exercise of normal professional capacities of a skilled person using the teachings of the prior art; it does not go against any prejudice, shows no break with the methods of the prior art, does not solve any technical difficulties and provides no surprising or unexpected result.

Therefore, the Court upheld the judgment of first instance and revoked claim 1 of the patent for lack of inventive step.

Moreover the decision of the Appeal Court focuses on the issue of limitation of the patent made after the decision of the first instance.

The Court notes that the original claims of the granted patent on which the judgment ruled, no longer exist.

It also notes that under the provisions of Article L 613-24 of the French Code of Intellectual Property, the patent owner may at any time, limit the scope of its patent by modifying one or more claims and the effects of this limitation retroact at the date of filing of the patent application.

It concludes that even if this limitation was granted after the decision of the first instance, the revocation of the patent argued by SKF under its counterclaim filed during the course of the infringement action brought against it, now relates to the claims as limited which the patentee is entitled to oppose in appeal.