UPC after one month: Life sciences cases
The Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) doors have been open since June 1. One month on, there is an opportunity to consider which parties have decided to dip their toes into the waters of the new court for their life sciences matters.
First up we have Sanofi/ Regeneron and Amgen. These parties have previously locked horns in Germany in relation to Amgen’s EP2215124 and Regeneron’s Praluent cholesterol lowering medication.
Now at the UPC, Amgen has, on the first day, filed an infringement action in the Munich local division in relation to its EP3666797. This was only granted on May 17, 2023, titled “Antigen Binding proteins to proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 (PCSK9)”, with the invention said to be useful for treating or preventing hypercholesterolemia.
And on the same day, Sanofi filed a revocation action for that same patent at Munich central division. It remains to be seen how the UPC will case manage these two cases about the same patent. Possibly the two actions will be consolidated either at the local or at the central division.
Edwards Lifesciences has launched two infringement actions in UPC against Meril—one in the Nordic-Baltic regional division and one in Munich local division concerning different patents EP2628464 and EP3646825 respectively, both relating to prosthetic valves.
The former patent is being opposed by Meril at the European Patent Office (EPO) (currently under accelerated appeal from rejection of the opposition) but the latter is not subject to opposition. These parties have been in litigation before about artificial heart valves, including in Germany in relation to various patents including EP2628464.
The Munich action has been brought against Meril GmbH and related Indian company Meril Life Sciences. Edwards has taken advantage of the Nordic-Baltic division to bring its action there against four companies, one in Lithuania and one in Estonia in addition to the German and Indian companies sued in the other action.
10X Genomics has sued Vizgen in Hamburg local division for infringement of EP4108782 (compositions and methods for analyte detection). Interestingly the claim was lodged on June 1 despite the fact that formal grant was not until June 7.
A request for unitary effect for this patent was formally allowed on June 12, 2023. The infringement action seems to relate to Vizgen’s MERSCOPE product about which it is also being sued by 10X Genomics in the US.
10X Genomics has also issued a press release indicating that it has sought preliminary injunctions against Nanostring Technologies on the basis of EP2794928 (compositions and methods for analyte detection) and EP4108782 (mentioned above).
This cannot yet be verified through the public UPC case management system. This follows on from 10X Genomics’ existing dispute with NanoString Technologies in the US and Germany in relation to Nanostring’s CosMX spatial molecular imager and reagents.
Finally, Astellas has filed revocation actions against two patents: EP3056563 (proprietor Healios KK, Riken and Osaka University); and EP3056564 (proprietor Healios KK and Osaka University).
The patents are for methods of producing and purifying retinal pigment epithelial cells. The revocation cases were initially lodged with Paris central division but have been transferred to Munich central division. EP3056564 is being opposed at EPO by a straw man, but no opposition was filed against EP3056353.
Joanne Welch is a managing associate at EIP. She can be contacted at: jwelch@eip.com
Darren Smyth is a partner at EIP. He can be contacted at dsmyth@eip.com
