UPC CFI, RD Nordic-Baltic, 21 July 2025: Direct infringement of amended patent, provisional damages of € 500.000awarded
27-10-2025 Print this page
Patent amended (Article 65 UPCA), Direct infringement (Article 25 UPCA).
Competence in relation to Meril Germany (Article 33.1(a) and (b) UPCA). On the Meril website, Meril Germany is described as Meril’s European Headquarters and the brochure specifies inter alia that Meril Germany can provide information on the availability of the Navigator in Europe.
Claim construction (Article 69 EPC). The importance of the patent claims means, inter alia, that a narrowing interpretation of the claims which deviates from the broader general understanding of the terms used therein by the person skilled in the art, can only be permitted in exceptional cases.
Added subject matter (Article 138(1)(c) EPC). Court is not convinced that there is an inextricable link between the indicia specified in claim 2 and the slot, or with any other unspecified features: omitting those features (e.g. a slot) does not represent an unallowable intermediate generalization. Added subject matter in independent claim 1 as well as dependent claims 7, 9, 10 and 10.
Insufficient disclosure claim 9 (Article 83 EPC). It is not clear to the person skilled in the art how Fig. 36 of EP 722 need to be modified to meet the requirements of claim 9.
Inventive step (Article 56 EPC). Problem-solution-approach: The parties have used the PSA as the basis when they have discussed inventive step and the Court sees no reason to make its assessment based on a different test. Hence, the PSA will be applied.
22 auxiliary requests reasonable (R. 30 RoP). Edwards explained that auxiliary request 11 and 1’ to 10’ had been submitted in order to streamline the proceedings and to simplify the Court’s work in case there would be an issue in one of the dependent claims.
Article 65(3) UPCA applies to limitations of the patent as granted ut not to applications to amend the patent.
Joint liability Meril India and Meril Germany (Article 68 UPCA). Acted in a close and interdependent commercial relationship, based on their structure as members of a group of companies, they have a joint liability for their infringing acts in the participating member states of the UPCA. Each of the defendants to pay € 500.000 as provisional damages.
When the Courts finds that a patent has been infringement, a request for an injunction should normally be granted (Article 63(1) UPCA). No overriding public interest; no reason to refrain from issuing an injunction in this case (not even in return for a payment in lieu), or to exclude certain sizes or grant a grace period.
