“Max Mara v. Kocca”
摘要
In the interpretation of a patent, reference must be made to the knowledge and language of a technical expert in the trade. This, however, does not imply that only he or she is capable of understanding the descriptions (here: that only a tailor is capable of understanding the descriptions of cuts and seams), save for exceptional situations. The interpretation of a patent is to be carried out according to principles of hermeneutic rationality, according to which, the literal meaning of the technical words used in the claims and their logical meaning shall be taken into account, according to both the overall sense of the content of the patent and the criterion of the balance between protection for the owner and legal certainty for third parties. For the purpose of verifying infringement by equivalence, first it is necessary to determine the scope of protection conferred by the patent by analytically identifying the various features of the invention, as they are expressly claimed in the patent text and interpreted, including on the basis of their description and the accompanying drawings. It is then necessary to ascertain whether each element in the claims is found in the allegedly infringing product, even if only by equivalence.