The team of the Legal Department of Moeller IP, representing the plaintiff, concluded in the middle of this year 2025 the judicial procedure of one of the few lawsuits for infringement of patents that have existed in Argentina in the last two decades, recognizing the existence of the infringement and awarding the respective compensation due to the plaintiff, although this was not exempt from various approaches and evasive strategies of the defendant as we will briefly explain below.
1. The Facts
The civil lawsuit for infringement of the patent was initiated in 2015 by an Argentine company that held a patent claiming certain characteristics of a stackable drawer for beer containers whose application was filed in June 2005 and was granted by the INPI in April 2011.
The purpose of the civil action was to have the competent federal civil and commercial judge of the City of Buenos Aires order the defendant, another Argentine company competing with the plaintiff, to cease in the use of the infringing products of the patent as well as to indemnify the damages caused to the plaintiff. Prior to the initiation of the lawsuit, the plaintiff requested preliminary measures of proof in audita parte that included the seizure of a copy of a product infringing the patent.
In its response to the complaint, the infringing company alleged that the plaintiff’s patent was invalid because it was anticipated by products existing on the market before the filing of its application in June 2005, although it only provided as evidence a single drawer whose alleged date of manufacture in 2004 had been placed in the drawer by using a simple dating mechanism whose manual manipulation to indicate a particular date was as simple as moving the days, months and years of the device, which made its adulteration very easy.
In addition, the defendant alleged that its conduct was lawful since it had filed and obtained in 2014 the registration of an industrial design claiming ornamental characteristics of a stacking box that coincided with those claimed by the plaintiff’s patent, which was requested after private negotiations began between the parties aimed at resolving the conflict before resorting to justice.
2. Judgment of the First Instance
The trial process lasted for many years due to the large volume of evidence produced and the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic caused widespread delays in judicial trials, but in December 2024 the judge of first instance issued his judgment declaring the plaintiff’s patent invalid for failure to comply with the novelty requirement, considering that it was anticipated by the product provided to the file by the defendant, which was a shocking surprise.
In addition, the judge of first instance held that the defendant’s conduct was lawful or in good faith because it was protected by the industrial design registered by that party in 2014. Finally, the ruling imposed the payment of the costs of the trial on both parties.
3. The Ruling of the Second Instance
The plaintiff appealed the ruling of the first instance arguing the existence of multiple errors of fact and legal nature that were accepted by the Court of Appeals when it decided in June 2025 to revoke the judge’s ruling.
The main argument of the Chamber’s decision to reject the declaration of invalidity of the patent lay in the effects derived from the existence of the presumption of validity of the administrative acts of the INPI that culminated in the granting of the patent.
In particular, the Court highlighted the fact that the plaintiff’s application was examined by the INPI without that specialized body finding any document or product that anticipated the novelty of the patent. Nor were there any oppositions filed by third parties or the defendant to the granting of the plaintiff’s patent.
The Court also highlighted the lack of evidence provided by the defendant to support its argument that the plaintiff’s patent was anticipated because there were products on the market that incorporated the claimed characteristics beyond the ONLY stackable drawer with a date engraved inside it that was easily manipulated to try to falsely allege that it had been manufactured before the date of filing of the patent application of the plaintiff.
4. Calculation of the Indemnization and the Burden of the Costs of the Trial
After revoking the judge’s ruling, the Court proceeded to calculate the amount of the compensation owed by the defendant, taking into account the accounting evidence that the parties were able to provide to the trial, while highlighting the difficulties of this task.
Finally, the Court revoked the judge’s imposition of the costs of the trial on both parties by application of the general principle that the losing party in a trial, in this case the defendant, must bear them.
5. Conclusion
Carrying out patent infringement lawsuits in Argentina is a possible task that must be justified taking into account the relevant circumstances of the respective businesses and markets of the parties but without losing sight of the different procedural complexities that must be overcome to achieve the proposed objectives.
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