Molded stone wall

The molded stone objection is a patent law objection that was developed by the Federal Court of Justice (BGH) in the groundbreaking molded stone decision (BGHZ 98, 12, 18 f. - molded stone) to the patent law of 1981. According to German law, the molded stone objection can be raised by the defendant in litigation for patent or utility model infringement and leads to the dismissal of the action if the following conditions are met:

1. On the one hand, the product attacked as infringing the patent must not be patentable with regard to the state of the art on the filing or priority date of the patent or utility model in suit, i.e. it must not be inventive compared to the state of the art.
2. On the other hand, the product attacked as infringing the patent must not have the same characteristics as the patent in suit, that is, literally. If all the features of the patent in suit were implemented identically, the denial of patent infringement would implicitly call the grant of a patent into question. Under German law, however, the court seised is not allowed to do this, as the court is bound by the grant of the patent as such and has to accept the legal status of the patent as given. To defend against an identically implemented patent in suit, it is therefore necessary to assert the lack of legal validity of the patent in separate nullity proceedings.