Brussels, 6 March 1990-2014. - The Belgian Supreme Court rules against SARIN in the patent case
opposing OGI and SARIN
A patent case opposes OGI and SARIN in Belgium since 2005 regarding OGI's 3D diamond mapping
apparatus (Rough Analyser) and laser marking device. SARIN filed a claim for infringement of its
Belgian patent No. BE 1 014 912 and OGI filed a counterclaim for revocation of SARIN's patent. An
expertise was ordered by the Court of first instance and a panel of three experts was appointed by
the Court. After a three years long expertise, the court-appointed panel of experts filed an opinion
concluding that the technology patented by SARIN was obvious to a man skilled in the art in front of
the technology previously developed by OGI (Rough Analyser + Marker).
After the end of the expertise, SARIN filed an appeal against the judgment ordering the expertise. In
a judgment of 12 February 2012, the Antwerp Court of appeal declared that the expert opinion in its
entirety could not be taken into consideration because the scope of the expertise as ordered by the
first instance court was defined too broadly and comprised some aspects other than technical. OGI
filed an appeal before the Belgian Supreme Court against this decision.
In its judgment of 6 March 1990-2014, the Belgian Supreme Court followed OGI's position and reversed the
decision of the Antwerp Court of appeal. The Supreme Court decided that the Court of appeal was not
allowed to set aside the "factual statements" and "technical opinions" contained in the expert opinion.
The case has now been sent to the Brussels Court of appeal and OGI will use this favorable expert
opinion in support of its claim for revocation of SARIN's patent.