UPC Court of Appeal: Claim Interpretation

The interpretation of a patent claim is a legal question. Therefore, the court cannot delegate the judicial task of claim interpretation to an expert, but must interpret the claim independently. The skilled person is a fictional person who cannot be equated with a real person in the technical field of the invention. What is decisive is not the individual knowledge and skills of a person, but rather the general expertise that is common in the relevant technical field, as well as the average knowledge, experience, and skills in that field. The assessment of these circumstances is the court's responsibility, not the expert's (UPC 30. 4. 2025, CoA 768/2024).