The first two substantive public hearings of the Unified Patent Court will be held next month at the local division in Munich about applications for provisional measures.
The hearings, on 5 (and if necessary 6) September and 19 September 2023, concern applications for preliminary injunctions in infringement cases brought by 10x Genomics against Nanostring Technologies. According to a UPC announcement, ‘immediately before the second oral hearing on 19 September, the newly appointed technically qualified judge, Mr Udo Matter, will take his oath in open court.’ He is one of 21 new technically qualified judges that were appointed in June 2023.
It is one of the many ‘first time’ developments at the UPC, which opened its doors in June. Over 50 cases have been initiated at various but predominantly German divisions, although the court is still struggling to present all information on its site in a satisfactory, transparent way. The complicated case search facility requires users to choose the type of proceeding they want to find (Proceeding, Application, Appeal, Order), and in any of these four options a new choice has to be made, between 15 types of proceedings, 37 types of applications, 9 kinds of appeals and 11 kinds of orders.
Also, as was pointed out in IAM Media, ‘the system does not inform the user which local division will hear each suit nor which judges have been appointed to individual actions. (…) Another frustration, both for users of the CMS and the public system, is the delay between the filing of cases and their acceptance and publication by the UPC.’ Recently a separate search facility for Orders and Decisions has been launched.
An alternative for the UPC’s own information, is the website launch by Dutch patent attorney Joeri Beetz: ‘Search UPC – easy access to UPC and EPO register data’. Here one can choose to search for all or specific kinds of proceedings (infringement, revocation, provisional application) and/or for cases concerning a specific representative, company (although it seems something goes wrong there. When choosing for Panasonic, for instance, only one case pops up, whereas there are twelve. UPDATE 28/8: this has now been corrected). Also, one can search for patents and what the state of affairs is concerning opt outs, oppositions and UPC cases. The most recent case published on the site dates from 18 August 2023. At this moment, 35 infringement proceedings have been started, six revocation actions and two actions for provisional application, according to the site.
Mobile communication and SEPs
The first cases filed at the UPC include 12 infringement claims from Panasonic against various subsidiaries of Oppo and Xiaomi, in the first major dispute over mobile communications and SEPs. They were filed at the local divisions in Mannheim and Munich. In a press release, Panasonic stated it expects ‘relevant actions will develop and proceed in parallel in Germany, the United Kingdom (UK), the newly established European Unified Patent Court (UPC) and China’.
Settlement
As was pointed out in an article of EIP Amar, ‘many of the parties involved in (…) initial infringement actions are pairings familiar from litigation already being fought in UK, Germany or US, such as Edwards Life Sciences against Meril, Ocado against Autostore and Amgen against Sanofi / Regeneron’.
In June, Ocado filed three claims against AutoStore at the UPC local divisions in Milan and Düsseldorf and the Nordic-Baltic division in Stockholm. But on 22 July the two parties announced a settlement in their global patent dispute, (described more in detail by JUVE Patent), which had been running for some years already in the US, UK and Germany. It is not unthinkable the prospect of further litigation and associated costs at the UPC influenced the decision – although this remains speculation.
Milan and preservation of evidence
The reasoning behind two ex parte orders to preserve evidence, issued by the Milan local division on 13 and 14 June 2023 (Oerlikon vs Himson, one and two), reflects a strong influence of the Italian colour local associated with descrizione, according to a Bird & Bird article. ‘The decision to grant the measure ex parte, and the dispensation of a security requirement, are commonly seen in Italian orders granting descrizione.’ IP Watchdog points out the cases were resolved in one day and concludes the ‘Milan Local Division is proving to be efficient, despite initial skepticism about Italian UPC court time decisions’.
Protective letters
In the case MyStromer v Revolt Zycling (UPC_CFI_177/2023) the UPC’s local division in Düsseldorf ordered a preliminary injunction, despite the fact that Revolt had filed a protective letter. Belgian IP firm Inteo commented on the case: ‘The Court also holds that the patent’s validity is sufficiently certain for a preliminary injunction, considering no relevant prior art was presented in the protective letter and that no opposition or national revocation actions had been filed. (…) But the order warns that you better present serious arguments, ideally including invalidity arguments and prior art if these are available, if you want a protective letter to be successful.’
According to Inteo, the ‘injunction issued by the Court covers Germany, the Netherlands, France and Italy. The territorial scope provided for an interesting wrinkle’. The patent at stake ‘is in force in Austria, Switzerland, Germany, France, Italy, Liechtenstein and the Netherlands. While Switzerland and Liechtenstein are not UPC jurisdictions, Austria is.’ A mistake of MyStromer, which filed a request for rectification under Rule 353, arguing that the omission of Austria was a manifest error in the decision. ‘But the Court would have none of it, finding that the order was issued based on MyStromer’s request, which did not cover Austria.’
Unitary effect
Finally, the other component of the Unitary Patent Package: the European Patent Office (EPO) has published a dashboard that reveals the leading sources of requests for unitary effect, as well as in which of eight broad technology sectors these patents are classified.
At the moment 7740 requests for unitary effect have been received, 7262 Unitary Patents have been registered. 20,6% concern infrastructure and mechanics, 19,4% materials and production, 18,9% health, 11,7% electronics and physics, 11,5% digital, 8,6% mobility and space technologies, 6,5% energy.
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One thing has become clear and it is not a surprise, the UPC is only a court for litigants having very deep pockets. And yet we were told with insistence that the UPC would be beneficial to European SMEs…
A further aspect has become clear and it is not a surprise either, is that the users of the UPC are, and will mainly come, from outside Europe as the UPC has opened a single door for litigation for the vast majority of patents anyway held by companies located outside the contracting states of the UPC.
It also does not come as surprise that national judiciary traditions transpire in decisions taken by local first instance panels. For those having followed “UPC moot court proceedings”, this was particularly noticeable. It will have to be seen what happens at the court of appeal or at the various locations of the Central Division.
National judiciary traditions have for instance transpired when looking at the decision of the Milan local panel for preservation of evidence.
As far as PI are concerned, the current German way of doing was clearly discernible in the “MyStromer v Revolt Zycling” case. The decision has been taken by a panel without a technical judge. What good are those if they do not give an input in such an intricate matter? In a Swiss patent blog, the question has been raised whether speed has preceded thoroughness. That a security of € 500 000 has been required is also worth noting. Could it be a way to increase the value of the litigation and hence the procedural fee for the benefit of the UPC? It is worth noting that a PI has been refused in Switzerland.
As far as the Central Division is concerned it will have to be seen whether the amended allocation of duties decided by the court itself and later by the Administrative Committee of the UPC withstand legal scrutiny. In which legal system has it ever happened that a court decides, for allegedly management reasons, to ignore the legal text by which the court has been set up? After all, decisions of the UPC will have to be enforced at national level. In spite of all treaties of mutual recognition and applicability of decisions, the last word is still to come.
It is interesting to note that the settlement and Autostore has been reached outside the arbitration chambers of the UPC. The high costs involved at the UPC are a clear deterrent, so again nothing for SMEs. It will have to be seen whether the threat of litigation will be enough to force SMEs to accept even unjustified claims. Why did Poland and the Czech Republic refuse to ratify the UPC?
It will be interesting to see whether the efforts of the Commission in matters of SEPs will be successful. It is not a surprise the Chair of the UPC is against the proposal of the EU Commission. Will he be able to resist the political pressure?
There is still a fundamental problem with the UPC: for a non opted-out patent the proprietor has the choice to act before the UPC or before a national court. Potential infringers are thus at the whim of the proprietors. This is worse in case a patent has been opted-out and later opted-in. One could consider that there is a kind of retroactive applicability of the UPC. In which legal system is such retroactivity of the applicability of legal provisions at all acceptable, especially has there is no specific provisions to this effect in the UPCA. I refer here to a comment by Concerned observer of July 14, 2023, on the following post: https://patentblog.kluweriplaw.com/2023/07/12/conflicts-between-upca-and-national-laws-a-dangerous-riddle/
When ratifying the UPC it is manifest that the parliaments of the member states have been kept in the dark and not informed of all the different negative aspects and effects slowly brought to light. And I am just mentioning pro-memoria the exit of the UK of a treaty not containing any exit clause. Why do we have the VCLT? Is the VCLT really not applicable to the UPCA?