We are glad to announce that the legal proceedings between Serviform S.r.l. and Elcede have been terminated successfully with a full victory for Serviform. As you might be aware of, Elcede had alleged infringement of their utility model (DE 20 2007 018 975 U1) and their German patent (DE 10 2007 011 516 B4) regarding a method and a machine for using milling discs in a die-making machine. Elcede Electronics-Laser-Consulting-Engineering-GmbH had filed court actions in Germany against Serviform S.r.l. and several related companies.
From the beginning, we were confident that these actions were unfounded and that the patent and the utility model were invalid. The German Federal Court of Justice this year declared the patent to be null and void. This is a last instance judgment with no further appeal possible. Recently, Elcede also waived their rights to the utility model entirely. Consequently, all actions filed by Elcede in this regard were dismissed, as requested by Serviform S.r.l. from the beginning.
We are extremely satisfied with this outcome, as we achieved our aim and defended our innovative products, which we developed ourselves. It is now clear that using milling discs in the nicking unit is not a patentable invention of our competitor, and that they cannot prevent the sale of such machines. This decision protects not only our own products, but also our distributors and customers.