On December 9, 2010, the Federal Patent Court in Munich (Germany) rendered its verdict on the patent nullity case initiated by Melexis in March 2009 against the austriamicrosystems patent EP0916074. In the first-instance, the Court declared all attacked patent claims (1-3 and 5-14) as null and invalid based on the prior art submitted by Melexis. This decision can be appealed at the Federal Supreme Court (Karlsruhe).
The invalidation of all relevant claims of the austriamicrosystems patent takes away the basis for the earlier judgment in the parallel patent infringement case judged in Dusseldorf on May 10 (first-instance) and against which Melexis has lodged an appeal with the Higher Regional Court of Dusseldorf.