Edwards Lifesciences v Meril & Ors (UPC_CFI_501/2023)
Decision date:
04 April 2025
Osborne Clarke summary
- The Munich LD held that Edwards' divisional patent relating to an implantable prosthetic heart valve was valid and infringed by the three Meril defendants.
- Meril raised a preliminary objection based on Edwards seeking a decision "within the area of application of the UPCA as of the date of the hearing, excluding Malta". Edwards' phrasing was held not to be specific enough; it was the responsibility of the claimant to specify the exact territories for which relief was sought. Edwards made an auxiliary request specifying the countries in question and this was considered admissible.
- Meril also argued that the Munich LD did not have jurisdiction over Meril Italy. The Munich LD held that Article 33(1)(b) UPCA allows multiple defendants to be sued at their domicile, their principal place of business or, if not those, at the place of business of one of the defendants provided that they have a commercial relationship and the action concerns the same alleged infringement. In the case of an European Patent without unitary effect, the same alleged infringement covers a situation where multiple defendants are accused of infringing the relevant national designations of the same European Patent by the same product or process. This interpretation avoids undermining the UPCA's goal of avoiding a fragmented European patent litigation landscape.
- Here, the three Meril defendants were accused of the same infringement and there was a sufficient commercial relationship as members of the same group of companies.
- As for validity of the patent, Meril made invalidity claims based on added matter, lack of novelty and inventive step and enablement. All of these were unsuccessful. With respect to the Munich LD's obviousness analysis, it stated that the EPO's problem-solution approach was to be primarily applied to the extent feasible in assessing obviousness because it promoted legal certainty and "further aligns" the UPC's jurisprudence with that of the EPO and its Boards of Appeal.
- The relief sought was held to be widely justified, with the Munich LD confirming that Edwards was entitled to injunctive relief (with this order not applying to Meril's XL size devices as was the case in an earlier decision), damages, a declaration of infringement and a claim for information relating to distribution channels. Edwards was said to have a legitimate interest in the publication of the decision in five public media outlets.
Issue
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