U.S. Company Had Claimed Patent Infringement By German Competitor

In the patent invalidity attack of the German manufacturer of freefall simulators, Indoor Skydiving Germany Group (ISG) against its US competitor iFLY/Skyventure International, the European Patent Office ruled in favor of ISG and restricted the relevant parts of iFLY´s European Patent No. EP 2 287 073. iFly may choose to appeal this decision.

ISG is a German manufacturer of high performance freefall simulators for professional skydivers, military divisions and the entertainment industry which manufactures freefall simulators in form of closed recirculating vertical wind tunnels. The wind tunnel technology was developed in cooperation with the Aerospace Department of the University Berlin (Technische Universität Berlin), Germany, and is internationally recognized for its energy efficiency, safety and design. The first reference facility of ISG opened in 2009 in Bottrop. Since then, ISG has successfully sold and built many facilities worldwide.

In December 2014, iFLY sued ISG in Germany based on iFLY´s new European Patent No. EP 2 287 073 and claimed that ISG infringed the iFLY patent. On September 19, 2016, the European Patent Office decided that the Patent No. EP 2 287 073 is not valid and can only be upheld with significant restrictions. The newly restricted version cannot be infringed by ISG.

The decision of the European Patent Office is in line with a number of prior decisions against iFLY’s repeated attempts to extend their original patents by applying for divisional applications/utility models. (see for example T1196/11).

“We are happy about the ruling by the European Patent Office”, says Boris Nebe, CEO of ISG. “And it shows once more that iFLY´s repeated attempts to unduly broaden their patents beyond the scope of the original application in order to catch our and our European competitor´s technologies are illicit and useless.

(Source: ISG news release. Image provided by iFly)

FMI: www.isg-group.de, www.ifly.com