Why Apple Went To Dusseldorf

  Now there’s also Dusseldorf, Germany, where judges are proving
  themselves quick, competent, and more often than not, erring on
  the side of the patent holder.

My employer has recently also been sued by an American company in the Dusseldorf court for an alleged patent violation, so I can confirm the part of "erring on the side of the patent holder" from personal experience.

In this case, the dispute was over the production of a chemical substance and the other party alleged that this stuff simply cannot be produced without violating their patent. Our company's lawyers and chemists presented a huge mountain of experimental data and analysis stating a number of alternative ways to produce the stuff, including the method currently used by our plants in Asia. The court then took this information and asked the plaintiff "does this look reasonable to you?" to which they of course answered back "no way!" and hence essentially won the case. Their final verdict was basically an exact copy of the plaintiff's statements.

So I don't know about the part of being competent, but this court is basically issuing default judgements on the behalf of patent holders. Being there personally for some of the hearings, I also got the impression that certain lawyers are very well connected to this court, causing them to just wave certain cases through without too much consideration.

Our case ended with an out-of-court settlement and I subsequently lost track of the final outcome but it sure was an eye-opening experience for me just watching how it's done.

> Patent-holding plaintiffs won 63% of all infringement cases in Dusseldorf between 2006 and 2009, according to recent research by the Global IP Project, a series of studies initiated by the law firm Finnegan. That’s well above the global average of 35%

I'm surprised the global average is so low. I'd expect plaintiffs to win a significant majority of cases for the simple reason that plaintiffs are the ones that decide whether or not to sue.