No breach of duty to disclose any known material facts (R. 192.3 RoP): Patent holder cannot be required, at the stage of the application for preservation of evidence, to respond in advance to possible attacks on the validity of the patent, without prejudice, at the stage of the substantive proceedings, to discussing...

Equity may require prevailing claimant to bear the costs of a revocation action in which the patent holder immediately surrenders the patent at the beginning of the proceedings and the patent holder was not previously contacted (Article 69(1) UPCA). The risk of an opt-out prompted by the contact before filing the...

Preliminary objection to UPC jurisdiction regarding Spanish, Swiss and UK designations of European patent rejected (Article 4  and article 24  Brussels Ibis regulation. Article 31 UPCA, R 20 RoP). The UPC therefore has jurisdiction to hear the infringement action brought by IMC Créations in respect of the Spanish and...

Claim interpretation when assessing patentability of an invention under Articles 52 to 57 EPC. Neither Article 69 EPC and the Protocol nor Article 84 EPC are entirely satisfactory as a basis for claim interpretation when assessing patentability, but can be applied by analogy. The claims are the starting point and the...

Appeal proceedings in revocation action stayed, with agreement of parties, pending the outcome of parallel opposition proceedings before the EPO Boards of Appeal, where the opposition proceedings could be expected to result in a final decision before or just after, in any case rapidly, in relation to the possible date...

Access to register after decision (R. 262 RoP) . Written pleadings or evidence that were not yet in the casefile at the time when the request for access was made, but were added to the casefile before a party commented on the request, can be covered by a decision granting access, provided that the request made clear...

Appeal against an order rejecting the production of evidence devoid of purpose after withdrawal of infringement action and proceedings are closed  (R. 360 RoP,, Art. 59 UPCA, R. 190 RoP). An appeal is devoid of purpose if there is no longer any reason to decide on it. As a result, the appeal has become devoid of...

Suspensive effect for an appeal is the exception to the rule as is shown by these three decisions of the UPC Court of Appeal in two days in April.

Patent revoked (Article 65 UPCA). Lack of inventive step . Admissible auxiliary requests in Reply to Statement of defence and counterclaim for revocation (R. 30 RoP, R. 263 RoP). Such consequential adjustments to the infringement action are covered by R. 30 RoP without the necessity to formally apply for leave to...

Suspensive effect appeal rejected (Article 74 UPCA). Kodak has failed to demonstrate that the Court of First Instance’s findings and considerations constitute manifest errors, i.e. factual findings or legal considerations which prove to be untenable already on the basis of a summary assessment. Incorrect understanding...

Direct infringement of non-lapsed German part of European patent (Article 25 UPCA). No jurisdiction UPC over national parts of a European patent, which have already lapsed in a UPCA member stat or a non-UPCA-member state before 1 June 2023 (Article 3(c) UPCA, Article 32 UPCA). 

Direct patent infringement within the territory of the UPCA member states by acts outside that territory (Article 25 UPCA): acts in the meaning of Art. 25 UPCA also encompass acts which make the infringement possible and support it, at least when such acts give the potential perpetrator control over the infringement. I...

Separation of proceedings ordered (R. 302 RoP) between national parts of European bundle patent ready for decision and the national parts of the patent-in-suit concerning Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom, which are not ready for decision yet: a fundamental question of European Law concerning the international...

Rieter CZ is the holder of EP3118356 for a method of safely starting or stopping a rotor in a rotor spinning machine. Opponent Saurer challenged the validity of the patent. Although the Opposition Division maintained the patent in amended form, Saurer appealed. The Technical Board held that answers from LLMs such as...

Order to preserve evidence and inspect premises has become devoid of purpose due to Swarco Futurit’s factual assertation being undisputed by Yunex (Article 60 UPCA, R. 360 RoP). The proceedings to secure evidence are a dependent part of the main proceedings. In the subsequent main proceedings, Yunex is precluded from...

Ex parte anti-anti-suit-injunction (Article 62(5) UPCA). Anti-suit and anti-enforcement injunctions violate the rights to justice; they constitute unlawful interference with the applicant's property-like right (Munich Local Chamber, order of 9 December 2024, CFI_755/2024 – Avago/Realtek). Imminent infringement of a...

 The indirect and direct infringement action is unfounded (Article 25 UPCA, Article 26 UPCA). The indirect patent infringement of claim 1 of the patent in suit alleged by the plaintiff pursuant to Art. 26 (1) UPCA does not exist. In any case, there is no literal realisation of feature 1. b) and feature group 1. c) aa...

Advertising with health claims relating to botanical substances in food supplements temporarily prohibited: Health claims describing of referring to psychological or behavioural functions may be used only if they are based on scientific evidence and are well understood by the average consumer. The use of health claims...

Since Denmark and Portugal failed, by the deadline set in the reasoned opinion of the European Commission dated 19 May 2022, to adopt the legislative, regulatory, and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Directive (EU) 2019/790 (the DSM Directive), and Bulgaria failed to comply with Directive 2019/789 (on...

Demonstrable risk of evidence being destroyed as the capture of data is one of the Applicant’s targets and it is generally accepted that digital data can be easily hidden or erased if previous notice is given of this kind of application, as is also mentioned above. Mammoet’s fear that evidence can easily be removed if...