A German maker of a very famous food processor has won first instance infringement proceedings in Spain versus a German discounter chain manufacturing and distributing an allegedly similar product which retails at around 30% of the price of the original product.

The original food processor constitutes the dominant design amongst cooking machines and is protected by an extensive value-driven IP strategy which does not only avoid imitations in a classical sense. The strategy is also designed to: secure future market positions, manage risk arising from potential competitor rights and most importantly secure the unique selling proposition (USP) of the original product. The IP strategy is a role-model for integrating IP in the business model relating to a product. More on this can be found in a case study on the IP strategy.

The patent in question is reported to be the Spanish part of EP 1 269 898 covering two important aspects of the products USPs, namely its ease of use and the operational safety.

The manufacturer of the original product claimed compensation equivalent to 10% of the sales of the machine marketed by the competitor. As the compensation will be set in the execution phase of the judgement, the appealable decision of the Commercial Court 5 of Barcelona requires the competitor to withdraw all its infringing kitchen robots from the Spanish market.