Nikon Corporation v. ASML Holding N.V., ASML Netherlands B.V. and ASML Systems B.V., District Court of The Hague, 22 August 2018, Case No. ECLI:NL:RBDHA:2018:10046

This is case no. 4 of 11 patent cases between Nikon and ASML.

Nikon holds EP 2 765 595 for an ‘Exposure apparatus, exposure method, and method for producing a device’. Nikon alleges ASML infringes EP ‘595. The Court rules that EP ‘595 is not inventive in light of Nikon’s own patent application US 165 combined with common general knowledge of the man skilled in the art. At the priority date of EP ‘595 it was common general knowledge that there was a preference in the market for immersion machines that used the local fill principle. EP ‘595 is invalid and therefore not infringed.

ASML claims the Court is not competent to rule on infringing acts outside the Netherlands. The Court disagrees. The Court is competent to rule on provisional claims and can provisionally rule on the validity of both Dutch and foreign parts of EP ‘595.