UPC Board of Appeal: Interpretation, Infringement

The patent in suit protects an avalanche transceiver in which, among other things, a control unit is provided to drive a loudspeaker to output a voice message depending on an event, with the loudspeaker also being configured to output a tone signal. Furthermore, the control unit is designed to drive the loudspeaker in such a way that a tone signal is either suppressed or output at a reduced volume while the voice message is being played. As a result, tone signals do not interfere with the intelligibility of voice messages, which in turn facilitates the search. Based on the description and the drawings, which must always be consulted as aids to interpretation, a “tone signal” is understood to be any acoustic signal unless it is a speech signal. A voice message is a signal that reproduces human speech (i.e., words), not a tone signal. The challenged products feature voice support and contain two different signal sources, one for acoustic patterns (tone patterns) and the other for acoustic speech. During operation of the device in search mode, one of the two sources is temporarily selected and played through the loudspeaker. The output of tone patterns is completely deactivated while a voice message is being played. The system switches from one signal generator to a completely independent second signal generator so that, while acoustic speech is being played, the acoustic-pattern signal generator is disabled, but is active before and after the acoustic speech is played (“switched”). Since, during operation of the device in the same search mode—i.e., without requiring any additional user input—there is an alternative control of the loudspeaker with either tone signals or voice messages, all claimed features are fulfilled (Unified Patent Court, 25 September 2024, Court of Appeal 182/2024).