UPC CFUI, CD Milan, 22 July 2025: Direct infringement, revocation action dismissed by decision by default
21-08-2025 Print this page
Direct infringement (Article 25 UPCA), revocation action dismissed by default (Article 65 UPCA, R. 355 RoP). Decision by default cannot be issued against the defendant based solely on a procedural violation or failure to defend (R. 355 RoP). Before issuing a decision by default against a defendant based on a procedural violation or failure to defend, the Court must verify that the case file contains sufficient, precise and consistent evidence to enable the judgment to be issued. The terms of the patent must be interpreted according to their principal functional meaning, bearing in mind the language used in the patent itself (patent’s own lexicon) (Article 69 EPC). When interpreting a patent claim, the person skilled in the art does not apply a philological understanding, but determines the technical meaning of the terms used with the aid of the description and the drawings. From the function of the individual features in the context of the patent claim as a whole, it must be deduced which technical function these features have individually and as a whole. The patent description may represent a patent’s own lexicon. The cap on costs of Article 1(3) of the decision of the Administrative Committee of 24 March 2023 applies in each instance of the court proceedings, regardless of the number of parties or patents involved. (Article 69 UPCA, R. 158 RoP). Consequently, when considering patent infringement, where both an infringing manufacturer and an infringing distributor are involved in two separate but parallel proceedings concerning the same patent and the same act of infringement, a unitary approach is warranted. The cap established in Article 1(3) would be otherwise violated.
