UK Trends and Developments Contributed by: Matthew Howell, Jamie Rowlands, Greg Ward and James Ward, Haseltine Lake Kempner
judgment, the Division stated that in the event of infringement disputes in several member states of the EU, a patentee must be able to concen - trate all its infringement claims and obtain com - prehensive compensation before a single forum, and avoid the risk of divergent decisions. The Division also applied the reasoning of the CJEU to find that the UPC did have jurisdiction to hear the infringement claims relating to the Spanish and Swiss parts of the patent (by virtue of Spain’s status as an EU member state and therefore a party to the Brussels I Recast Regu - lation, and Switzerland’s status as a contracting state to the Lugano Convention). Again applying the CJEU’s reasoning, the Divi - sion found that as the UK is a third country that is not party to either the Brussels I Recast Regu - lation or the Lugano Convention, the UPC had jurisdiction to adjudicate on both infringement and validity of the UK part of the patent, pro - vided that any finding of invalidity would only have inter partes effect and therefore would not affect the existence or scope of the UK part of the patent. Alpinestars v Dainese This is an order delivered by the Milan Local Divi - sion on 8 April 2025 (ORD_64124/2024, UPC_ CFI_792/2024). In this case, the Italian compa - ny Dainese sued its Italian rival Alpinestars for infringement of European patent EP4072364, relating to a wearable protective device, in the contracting member states of the UPCA and in Spain. Alpinestars filed a preliminary objection, arguing that the UPC did not have jurisdiction to rule on the alleged infringement of the Spanish valida - tion of the patent.
The Milan Local Division applied the reasoning of the CJEU decision to find that in a case where a defendant is domiciled in a UPC contracting state (here, Italy), the relevant UPC division has universal jurisdiction to adjudicate on infringe - ment issues relating to European patents vali - dated in non-UPC countries: “The UPC, deemed to be a court of a Member State, in case it is the Court of the domicile of the defendant, has jurisdiction to adjudicate on infringement issues related to patents validated in non-UPC coun - tries”. TGI Sport v AIM Sport In an order dated 11 April 2025 (UPC_ CoA_169/2025), the UPC Court of Appeal upheld the Helsinki Local Division’s earlier decision allowing AIM Sport to amend its infringement claim to cover infringement of the Spanish vali - dation of European patent No EP3295663. The Court of Appeal agreed that refusing to extend the claim to Spain could lead to irreconcilable and inconsistent decisions, if AIM Sport were to initiate separate proceedings in respect of the Spanish validation. Syngenta v Sumi In this order dated 14 April 2025 (UPC_ CFI_566/2024/UPC_CFI_39/2025), the Munich Local Division allowed Syngenta to amend its infringement action to cover infringement of Pol - ish, Czech and UK validations of European pat - ent No EP2152073. The application to amend came late in the proceedings, but the Division accepted Syngenta’s argument that it could not have been made earlier because, prior to the CJEU decision, it was generally considered that the UPC was not competent to hear cases con - cerning infringement of national validations of a European patent in non-UPC countries.
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