Thermomix blades will decide if Lidl plagiarized Vorwerk

Process of assembling a Thermomix kitchen robot in the factory of the company Vorwerk in Wuppertal, Germany.Ximena Garrigues and Sergio Moya

The judgment on the Thermomix has been this Wednesday seen for sentence.

Two days with a relevant technical discussion, literal references to patents and discussions about alleged technological advances will mark the confrontation between Vorwerk, manufacturer of the well-known brand of kitchen robots, and the Lidl supermarket chain in Spain, accused of reproducing with its brand white Silvercrest a similar model that sells for a much lower price.

The owner of the Commercial Court number 5 of Barcelona has in his hands to declare Lidl guilty of patent infringement or what could lead to almost the opposite: declare the Thermomix patent invalid, as claimed by the distribution group in a cross demand.

This Wednesday's session focused on the claim for infringement filed by Vorwerk and the presentation of the conclusions by the lawyers of both companies.

The German manufacturer of household appliances - it also specializes in vacuum cleaners - has argued at the hearing that in the Lidl Monsieur Cuisine Connect model "there are all the characteristics and literally" that appear in its patent.

An accusation that has been countered by Lidl's defense by arguing that this is not the case and by qualifying as "illusory" the interpretations made during the trial by the industrial expert who has defended the arguments of the opposing party.

The arguments during the hearing have focused on one of the Thermomix characteristics that Vorwerk defends as his own, something that Lidl questions in his interpretation.

It is a safety system that paralyzes the rotation motor of the blades when the user of the robot removes the lid of the kitchen glass from the machine.

Lidl defends that this option is not present in its device, since the blades could continue to rotate once the cover is removed due to the inertia they carry from the previous operation, despite the fact that the expert and Vorwerk's defense have tried to show that This danger is non-existent despite the fact that the lid is removed very quickly.

The importance of words

Vorwerk has defended during the two days of the trial that some of the functions assumed by his patent appear implicitly in the explanation of the patent while Lidl has emphasized that in a patent “words take on decisive importance” in the description of parts and functions.

The supermarket company has also used different patents for robots from other brands (Matsushita, Philips and Braun) to try to question whether Vorwerk's represents an advance in inventiveness, an argument it uses to request its suspension.

In this sense, the discount supermarket chain considers that the European Patent Office has not analyzed Vorwerk's patent against Braun's last, so it has reiterated that the judge will be the first to do so to determine its relevance or no and its possible cancellation.

If the judge determines that Vorwerk is right, he must also decide whether Lidl has to pay the manufacturer 10% of the gross amount of its sales that has been sued.

The manufacturer of Thermomix has determined that compensation taking into account 5% based on the payment for transfer of license contemplated in the United States plus 5% when considering that this transfer would be "forced".

Lidl is also opposed to these calculations, considering that the 5% should be lowered to 4% and that in a parallel litigation taking place in France Vorwerk has only sued Lidl for an initial 5% compensation.