Application for leave to amend the claim denied (R. 263 RoP). The fact that the Claimant seeks to claim infringement by equivalence does not constitute an amendment of the case. Extending the equivalence argument to features 1.9 and 1.10 does not alter the nature or scope of the dispute. The equivalence argument...

Plaintiff ordered to provide € 150.000 security for the costs of the legal dispute and other costs (R. 158.1 RoP). Sufficient likelihood that any decision by the UPC on costs in favour of the second defendant could only be enforced with disproportionate difficulty against company based in the People's Republic of China...

Patent maintained in amended form (Article 65 UPCA). Indirect infringement (Article 26 UPCA); No exhaustion (Article 29 UPCA). As is usually the case, the purpose specified in the claim (Article 69 EPC) defines the protected subject matter in such a way that it must be objectively suitable for interacting with the...

Application for suspensive effect appeal of confidentiality club regime rejected (R. 262A RoP, R. 223 RoP). The appeal will not become devoid of purpose as a result of not granting the application for suspensive effect. The information protected under R. 262A RoP will still be confidential as the employees from...

Preliminary objection rejected (R. 19 RoP). Lodged within one month of service, because, in the present case, the Statement of claim is deemed to have been served on the Defendants on the tenth day following posting, i.e. between 25 and 30 March 2024, in accordance with Rule 271.6 (b) RoP. Unfounded: the objections to...

A lawyer authorised to represent a party in a proceeding on provisional measures is not automatically authorised to represent the same party in a subsequent infringement action concerning the same patent (Article 48(1) UPCA, R. 8.1 RoP, 

Application for suspensive effect unsuccessful because the reasons for the decision are not yet available (R. 223 RoP). If, as in this case, the grounds for the decision are not yet available, an obvious error in the contested decision can only be assumed if it is possible to identify an obvious error without knowledge...

Preliminary injunction (Article 62 UPCA, R. 211 RoP). International jurisdiction UPC including Spain (for Defendants 2 and 3). UPC has international jurisdiction with respect to Defendants 2) and 3) as they are domiciled in Germany (Article 4(1) BR). This extends to the territories of the Contracting Member States of...

Patent partially revoked (Article 65 UPCA); not infringed (Article 25 UPCA). Lack of inventive step  (Article 56 EPC) because error-cleaning steps suggested by common general knowledge, as mentioned above, are so basic that any Skilled Person would perform them, regardless of how unreliable they think the data is. In...

Panel confirmation of order dismissing leave to amend counterclaim for revocation by introducing new prior art (R. 263 RoP, R. 333 RoP). Same principles of weighing of interests and discretion apply when the amendment concerns a counterclaim for revocation. On a regular basis, the interest of the claimant of an...

The breakdown of hours worked between the lawyers involved is confidential information belonging to both the lawyers and their client and is also subject to the attorney-client-privilege. The distribution of hours could allow conclusions to be drawn about the working methods and, in some circumstances, the importance...

No separate proceedings for cost decision for costs incurred in connection with the application for, opposition to or defence against procedural orders ( Rules 150 RoP), including orders for security for costs pursuant to R. 158 RoP. Instead, these costs will be assessed as part of the total costs of the proceedings in...

Stay of infringement action and counterclaim for revocation regarding EP 857 (R. 295(m) RoP) pending the outcome of the appeal against the first instance decision of the Local Division Düsseldorf in the infringement proceedings regarding patent EP 3 536 712 (“EP712”). The question of infringement of EP 857 involves the...

No annulment of decision of the EPO to reject a request for unitary effect because of an incorrect name and postal address submitted by a third party on behalf of the proprietors (R. 97.4 RoP). The fact that the third party was not aware of the change in address or the irregularity does not excuse the irregularity. The...

No need to amend case because of amended B2 version of European Patent (R. 263 RoP). Article 68 EPC clarifies that from the outset the patent shall be deemed not to have had the effects specified in Art. 64 and Art. 67 EPC to the extent that the patent is limited. Therefore, already on the date on which the SoC was...

Explanation of proposed claim interpretation in the Statement of claim only required “where appropriate”(R. 13.1(n) RoP). In the present case, the applicant considered that the interpretation of the terms of the contested claims was not necessary because it considered that those terms had no particular meaning in the...

Patent revoked because claims 1, 2, 5, 6, 10 and 35 are invalid due to an extension of subject matter (Article 138(1)(c) EPC, Article 123(2) EPC). On test for added matter UPC Court of Appeal, 14 February 2025, UPC_CoA_382/2024 (Abbott/Sibio),.  [...] it follows from the above principles set out by the Court of Appeal...

Patent revoked to the extent of claim 1 because of added matter (Article 65 UPCA). Added matter (Article 138(1)(c) EPC, Article 76 EPC, Article 123(2) EPC). The criterion to determine whether a divisional application extends beyond the content of the parent application is the same as the one applied to determine...

Claim construction: patent’s own lexicon (Article 69 EPC). The Court considers that according to the ordinary meaning of the wording in common language as well as in the context of the description and the drawings of the patent, the term “a working surface” is to be interpreted as meaning “one working surface”. In this...

Change of the variables stored in the computer’s RAM does not constitute a form of expression of a computer program: The protection afforded by the Software Directive 2009/24 does not extend to the content of the variable data transferred to the RAM of a computer and used by that program in its running, in so far that...