UPC CFI, CD Milan, 27 November 2025: Standing to sue for revocation: a competitor
09-04-2026 Print this page
Standing to sue for revocation action – a competitor is “concerned by a patent” (Article 47(6) UPCA).
Any party (potentially) operating in the technical field of the patent are “concerned” by a patent. The legal certainty aimed at by allowing a standalone revocation action is especially important for competitors of the patentee who may want to make sure they have “freedom to operate” in a certain field and therefore safety with regard to developments and investments.
Novelty (Article 54 EPC). The skilled person will generally not (directly and unambiguously) deduce dimensions from schematic figures.
Partial revocation (Article 65(3) UPCA). Auxiliary request 1 inadmissible: leaves the amendment of the patent to the discretion of the Court, and is furthermore illogical, thus perplex. The Court may may not assess clarity and conciseness issues, if they stem from unclarity issues already present in granted dependent claims (Article 84 EPC).
Inventive step (Article 56 EPC). Burden of proof of existence of common general knowledge is on the party invoking it (Article 54 UPCA). The inhalation valve an essential feature of the device of D3. There is no hint to remove the valves. Therefore, D3 teaches away from omitting the inhalation valve 20.
