LIDL wins battle to Vorwerk: Monsieur Cuisine does not infringe Thermomix patent

Published

Jan 31 2022

Written By

Antonio Cueto

Of Counsel
Spain

I am a Of Counsel in Bird & Bird's Intellectual Property/Dispute Resolution department in the Madrid office.

Practices

Sectors

Retail and Consumer

Countries

Spain

The provincial court of Barcelona (section 15ª) has ruled that Lidl did not infringe Thermomix’s patent rights in Spain.

Vorwerk & Co. Interholding GmbH (hereinafter, Vorwerk), manufacturer of the cooking machine “Thermomix”, on June 14 2019, filed a lawsuit against Lidl Supermercados S.A. (hereinafter, Lidl) bringing a patent infringement action in relation to the patent EP 1 269 898 - ES 2 301 589 (ES '589) protecting technology consisting of a "cooking machine", alleging that the offering and marketing in Spain of a cooking robot under the trademark “Silvercrest” and identified as “Monsieur Cuisine Connect”, a competitor of Vorwerk's Thermomix cooking machine, infringes its patent.

The patent ES '589, alleged by Vorwerk, is the validation in Spain of the European patent EP 1 269 898, applied for on June 27 2002 and claiming a priority of June 29 2001. The application for effectiveness in Spain was filed on May 9 2008 and the translation was published on July 1 2008. The patent ES '589 claims the invention of a cooking machine including eight…