If the defendant raises validity incidentally in a patent case, and the court is not the place of registration, what happens to the court's competence?

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The key idea is that validity of a patent is handled by the court of registration. When a defendant challenges patent validity incidentally in a case that is not being heard by that registration forum, the court hearing the case does not have authority to decide on the patent’s validity. Because the matter of validity is reserved for the registration court, the current court loses competence to rule on that issue. The infringement aspects can proceed if not dependent on a valid ruling on validity, but the specific validity question cannot be decided here. That’s why the correct result is that the court loses competence.

In short, validity is a matter for the registration forum, and non-registration courts cannot adjudicate it, hence they lose competence on that issue.