On 19 January 2018 it was published the decision of the Bologna Court of Appeal in a case relating to a patent having as subject matter ‘a particular kind of plastic packaging for glasses, sealing the glass directly to the neck of a bottle, allowing to fit the neck of the bottle directly inside the glass’. Based on such patent the plaintiff appellant Tecnoform had realized the product ‘Glasspack’. In 2009 Tecnoform sued Vetro Paini before the Court of Bologna claiming that the latter manufactured and marketed products that were infringing its patent. Vetro Paini as its defence, pleaded the nullity of the patent.On 28 March/9 April 2014 the Court of Bologna ruled for the nullity of the patent and dismissed the claim for infringement. This decision was subsequently appealed and the Bologna Court of Appeal was called to assess the validity of such patent.The Court of Appeal upheld the decision in the first instance, ruling that the patent at issue was invalid for lack of the inventive step requirement and recalled that ‘there is lack of novelty when all the technical features contained in the claims of the patent have already been disclosed by a prior art considered individually’ whilst the invention lacks the pre-requisite of inventive step when the person skilled in the art ‘after having obtained all the information made available to the public, possibly also combining a multitude of inventions and existing knowledge’ consider the technical problem to be obvious.
A third party subject, summoned in the proceedings, remained in default in the first degree stage. To such regard, interestingly the Bolognese Judges stated that the nullity of the patent, acknowledged as a cross appeal and hence following a defense and not a request, may be enforced by all the parties interested in the proceedings, including the party that remained in default, which is always part of the proceedings.