Stamicarbon, the Licensing and IP Center of Maire Tecnimont S.p.A., has won the appeal procedure against two patent applications of the ACES21 technology of Toyo Engineering Corporation from Japan.
Some time ago Toyo Engineering Corporation of Japan filed two patent applications, which cover the heart of a „new‟ urea process and are exploited by TEC under the commercial name “ACES21”. In Europe these patents were granted under the numbers EP 1035111 and EP 1035112.
Both patent applications have been opposed by Stamicarbon B.V. on the grounds that they are not real inventions, but are obvious to the skilled person and therefore do not merit patent protection. On September 13 and 14, 2012 oral hearings were held at the European Patent Office in Munich in an appeal procedure against these two patents. These oral proceedings were attended by Stamicarbon assisted by their patent representative of “De Vereenigde” from The Netherlands.
As a result of these oral proceedings the EPO has decided that these TEC patents are revoked; thus they are no longer valid patents.
