It’s not a disaster, because in Germany there is Roman law, as opposed to America’s common law. It’s different and it makes a sentence something much less disastrous.
You are correct about the law, but that is also an idealized statement. They do use precedent as well in Germany. Judges do draw from previous comparable verdicts. A previous failed attempt can significantly lower chances for a future success in a similar case. For each book of law, you can buy books with commentary, relating to previous cases and what their outcome was. This has actual influence on future verdicts.
how about the case of Christoph Hellwig vs VMware for stealing vmklinux under the GPL. german courts basically dismissed him twice for not being procedural, which gave VMWare ample time to dodge a GPL bullet and remove the code from their kernel without admitting any fault or wrongdoing.
That was a design patent not a case of technical implementation.
In the United States, a design patent is a form of legal protection granted to the ornamental design of a functional item. Design patents are a type of industrial design right. Ornamental designs of jewelry, furniture, beverage containers (Fig. 1) and computer icons are examples of objects that are covered by design patents.
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A US design patent covers the ornamental design for an object having practical utility. An object with a design that is substantially similar to the design claimed in a design patent cannot be made, used, copied or imported into the United States without the permission of the patent holder. The copy does not have to be exact for the patent to be infringed. It only has to be substantially similar.