Patent leading to market exclusion finally made illegal

28/03/2012 — DRESDEN, Germany — (BUSINESS WIRE)

The online printers unitedprint.com SE http://www.unitedprint.com
and their subsidiary print24 GmbH http://www.print24.de
have won a landmark patent dispute against Vistaprint. On Thursday,
March 22 the German Federal Court of Justice (BGH) handed down its final
verdict on the legal dispute initiated in 2007. The judges finally
declared the controversial Vistaprint patent EP 0 852 359 B 1 null and
void.

The patent described a process for preparing, processing and
transmitting templates via the internet. In 2006, Vistaprint filed the
first lawsuit against unitedprint.com SE and print24 GmbH. Vistaprint
alleged that the subsidiary of unitedprint.com SE had, with its powerful
FreeDesign tool, violated their patent. The whole European software
industry was in a panic over Vistaprint’s attempt to secure a monopoly
on the European software market. Had the patent leading to market
exclusion obtained by Vistaprint proved valid, it would have been
illegal to transmit and process digital data via the internet without
infringing the patent.

In 2007, unitedprint successfully appealed to the German Federal Patent
Court against the patent. The final verdict delivered by the BGH a few
days ago confirmed the patent’s revocation by the Federal Patent Court.
With its decisive victory in the dispute, unitedprint has laid the
foundations for more open and legally compliant competition in the
European software industry. unitedprint is now entitled to considerable
damages totaling six figures from the proceedings, after the BGH
increased the litigation value.

unitedprint.com
SE is Europe’s market leader in the online-printing sector. It provides
its customers with top-quality flyers, posters, postcards, prospectuses,
business cards, writing paper, and much more besides, in the quickest
delivery times, and at the lowest prices.

You can find more information on unitedprint and its products and
services at http://www.unitedprint.com.

The original source-language text of this announcement is the official,
authoritative version. Translations are provided as an accommodation
only, and should be cross-referenced with the source-language text,
which is the only version of the text intended to have legal effect.

CONTACT:

unitedprint.com SE
Contact: Roman Kasper
Tel.: +49-351-27225379
E-mail:
roman.kasper@unitedprint.com
Website:
www.unitedprint.com

KEYWORDS: Europe Germany

INDUSTRY KEYWORDS: Manufacturing Other Manufacturing Communications Marketing Publishing Other Communications

MEDIA:

Logo