Sealed up: Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek prevails in patent infringement proceedings

By judgment of October 6, 2011, the Regional Court of Düsseldorf decided in favor of Stricker GmbH & Co. KG in its patent infringement complaint against Grüning & Loske GmbH. In the meantime, the defendant appealed the judgment.

The proceeding dealt with a patent for a rubber sealing ring with a hollow cross-section (DE 4230806). It concerns the curing of two ends of a rubber sheet through vulcanizing so that a sealing ring is produced. Such sealing rings are necessary in order to seal two rigid surfaces that are movable against each other. They are used, among others, in cleaning vehicles that work with one tank only both for the cleaning water and for the subsequent intake of wastewater.

The patent holder, Stricker GmbH & Co. KG, headquartered at Münster, develops, manufactures and sells rubber and plastic products among others. In the patent infringement proceeding, it complained particularly about the sale of a foreign-manufactured sealing ring by Grüning & Loske GmbH. The Regional Court of Düsseldorf deemed the sale of this product an infringement of the patent-in-suit. In addition, the court considered the defendant's nullity arguments in the nullity proceedings held at the same time to be insufficient and therefore rejected the defendant's subsidiary motion for stay of proceedings.

Stricker GmbH & Co. KG was represented by Düsseldorf-based patent lawyers Dr. Anton Horn and Dr. Sabine Dethof (both Heuking Kühn Lüer Wojtek) and patent attorney Dr. Ralf Gödde (Gesthuysen, von Rohr & Eggert, Essen, Lead, representation in the nullity proceedings held before the Federal Patents Court).