Advanced Brain Monitoring v Koninklijke Philips (UPC_CFI_43/2025, UPC_CFI_103/2025)
Decision date:
03 March 2026
Osborne Clarke summary
- Advanced Brain Monitoring (ABM), a US company focusing on neuro-diagnostics devices, brought an infringement action against Koninklijke Philips and related entities before The Hague LD. ABM alleged that Philips' NightBalance sleep position therapy device infringed its patent, which covered wearable systems for treating sleep disorders using position therapy. Philips filed a successful counterclaim for revocation.
- On claim construction, the court applied the Court of Appeal's principles from NanoString v 10x Genomics, confirming that the patent claim is not only the starting point, but the decisive basis for determining protective scope of the patent. The description and drawings must be used as explanatory aids for the interpretation of the patent claim and not only to resolve ambiguities. However, this does not mean that the claims serve as only a guideline and that the description and drawings are able to extend the claim beyond its wording. Here, the court construed the key claim features broadly and rejected ABM's attempts to read additional technical requirements into the claim language.
- On the basis of this broad construction, the court held that claim 1 was anticipated by embodiment 1 of a Japanese patent application and therefore lacked novelty. None of the dependent claims could render the patent valid.
- ABM had filed an auxiliary request limiting feature 1.2 of claim 1 to render the claim novel over the Japanese patent application. While it did overcome the novelty challenge, the court found that the amended claim was obvious starting from the Japanese patent application because the mercury switch used in the Japanese patent application was a hazardous substance that was prohibited in the EU from 1 July 2006 and the skilled person at the priority date would have been compelled to find an alternative. The alternative used in the amended claim was held to be well-established common general knowledge for use in wearable devices at the priority date, which rendered the amended claim obvious.
- The patent was revoked in its entirety. ABM’s infringement action was dismissed. The parties agreed a decision on costs – ABM was to pay Philips €39,000 in each the infringement action and the revocation counterclaim – which the court endorsed.
Issue
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