In the past few years, the Barcelona Courts with jurisdiction over patent matters (Commercial Courts nos. 1, 4 and 5) have acted in close coordination with one another, e.g. holding joint deliberations of the three judges. Now, in a case where one of those Courts refused to join two separate infringement actions pending before Courts nos. 4 and 5 on account of such coordination, the Barcelona Court of Appeal (Section 15) has ruled in favour of joining separate proceedings brought against two different defendants, yet based on the same patent. Furthermore, in cases where proceedings are not joined, the Court of Appeal is against the approach of staying one set of proceedings; rather, both should be processed simultaneously, while the Courts take precautions to avoid conflicting decisions.
Case date: 04 February 2019
Case number: Ruling No. 13/2019
Court: Court of Appeal of Barcelona
A full summary of this case has been published on Kluwer IP Law.
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