The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is a planned future court common to EU Member States which participate in the Unitary Patent system, and it will be part of their judicial system. After a transitional period of 7 years or 14 years at most, it will have exclusive competence in respect of traditional European patents and European patents with unitary effect (Unitary Patents). The UPC is based on the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The Unitary Patent system and the UPC are planned to start functioning once certain ratification conditions have been fulfilled.
Readers are familiar with the story of the founding of the UPC, which “obliged” its founders to make it an ad hoc Court, not integrated into the European judicial system (with a reinforced cooperation agreement between the members of the UPC). The fragility of this system has provoked much criticism (e.g., our comments here). The…
On 17 April 2024, the Court of Appeal of the UPC handed down its decision concerning the language of proceedings in the (undoubtedly ground-breaking) case of Curio Bioscience v 10x Genomics. Curio had applied in January to have the language of proceedings changed from German to English, but their application was rejected in February at…
There are now three interesting developments, albeit in quite different areas, which have in common the effort to avoid stepping on banana skins on the path towards a more unified patent system. The first one, published last week, was a decision by the Court of Appeal (CoA) itself, which took the opportunity to clarify that…
In a revocation action the patent may be amended by the patent proprietor. According to Rule 30 RoP this should be done with an application; for subsequent amendments the explicit approval of the court should be sought. In the present case the patent proprietor tried to introduce amendments that had also been filed in another…
Last week, we had the opportunity to review the texts regarding the UPC “saisie”, the ex parte orders issued in the OERLIKON and C-KORE cases. In the second case, which is before the Paris local division, the seized party has lodged an appeal against the order. To the best of my knowledge, this is the…
Earlier this week, we examined the UPC’s first case on UPC “saisie-contrefaçon” (or “SC”, see here). Today, we turn our attention another order of this type, which has been rendered by the Paris local division. In this case, C-KORE had a SC carried out at the premises of its competitor NOVAWELL. C-KORE holds a patent…
Having examined the UPC texts relating to UPC “saisie-contrefaçon” (see here), it’s time to look at the initial case law. Of course, the existence of only two cases is insufficient to draw general conclusions, but we can already see how the system works in practice, and draw some conclusions. The first two cases were initiated…
The “saisie-contrefaçon“, that French-style “Anton Piller Order”, but obtained in the blink of an eye, to such an extent that the whole world is still in awe; our Marylin of French patent law has made her discreet entry into the JUB. It may come as a surprise to the reader that I use the expression…
In accordance with the principles of procedural economy and cost efficiency as well as a fair balance between the legitimate interests of the parties, which must be considered in the interpretation of the Rules of Procedure pursuant to Article 41(3) UPCA, the proceedings are not required to be stayed under Rule 311.1, first sentence RoP,…
The Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court has overturned the preliminary injunction issued by the Munich local division against NanoString in its conflict with US biotech company 10xGenomics. The court cited substantial concerns about the invalidity of the asserted claim of 10xGenomics’ European Patent 4108782 B1, noting that “on the balance of probability…
