Gide x Regimbeau – Patent Litigation: A historic first oral hearing on the merits before the Paris Central Division (UPC) in the Meril Italy S.r.l. v. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation case

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) won its bet!

On 7 June 2024, and only ten months after the service of the statement for revocation in August 2023, the first hearing on the merits before the Paris Central Division (PCD) of the UPC historically took place in the context of the revocation action brought by Meril Italy S.r.l., represented by Gide x Regimbeau - Patent Litigation, against patent EP 3 646 825 (EP 825), a system comprising a prosthetic valve and a delivery catheter owned by Edwards Lifesciences Corporation ("Edwards"), an American medical technology company headquartered in Irvine, California (USA).

Opened to the public, the oral hearing was held before the Panel appointed to hear the case, comprising Mr. Paolo Catallozzi (IT), Presiding-Judge and Judge-Rapporteur; Mrs. Tatyana Zhilova (BG), legally qualified judge (LQJ), and Mr. Stefan Wilhelm (DE), technically qualified judge (TQJ), in the largest Court room of the International Chamber of the Paris Commercial Court, at the request of Meril Italy S.r.l.'s Representatives (i.e. Emmanuel Larere, Raphaëlle Dequiré-Portier from Gide, and Anne Seibel from Regimbeau) (click HERE to read the article concerning the Interim Conference in relation with this event).

The oral hearing concerned the main revocation action brought by Meril Italy S.r.l. against Edwards' patent EP 825, as well as the Counterclaims for revocation brought by Meril Life Sciences Pvt. Ltd. and Meril GmbH against the same patent in the infringement proceedings before the Munich Local Division (MLD) on 2 November 2023, after the MLD referred the said Counterclaims to the PCD and the Judge-Rapporteur of the PCD decided by Order of 24 May 2024 to hear together these two cases.

The oral hearing began at 9.30am and lasted until approximately 4pm, in the course of which one-hour lunch break was allowed.

The representatives of the three Meril entities, as claimants for revocation, took the floor first to present their arguments on the following topics (in chronological order): procedural issues related to the non-admissibility of Edwards' Application to amend EP 825 in application of Rules 50§2 and 30§1 RoP, added matter, priority, claim construction, novelty and inventive step.

The layout and equipment of the International Chamber of the Paris Commercial Court and the availability of the Registry of the PCD to supervise the organization of the oral hearing enabled all the teams to present on several large screens drawings and images in support of their oral submissions in a highly visible and clear manner.

After the lunch break, each party was able to return to the points raised by its opponent and then answered the few questions asked by the Court.

Finally, the presiding judge closed this historic hearing by stating that, as the main revocation action and the Counterclaims for revocation were still two separate proceedings, not one but two decisions would be handed down shortly. 

It goes without saying that the successful holding of the hearing within the more than respected one-year timeframe of the UPC fulfils its promise of handling rapidly highly sophisticated patent disputes: a real achievement for Europe and European patent law!