MILAN CENTRAL DIVISION Law and Practice Contributed by: Luca Pellicciari, Lorenzo Battarino and Daniel Borgogni, Trevisan & Cuonzo
3.6 Court of Appeal Substantive Jurisprudence
The Milan CD has also demonstrated particu - lar flexibility to adjust to the parties’ needs, as it did in the Maschio Gaspardo v Spiridonakis Bros case, where – due to objective difficulty in transporting the machine in suit (or even only part thereof) to the premises of the court for visual inspection – it agreed to carry out an inspection at the applicant’s premises (located outside Milan) immediately before the hearing was held in order to best understand functioning and details of the tool covered by the patent in suit (see 3.3 Pending Cases for more details). 4.2 Key Procedural Issues In the limited timeframe in which it has been operational, among the more important proce - dural issues dealt with by the Milan CD are the possibility for third parties to intervene in pend - ing proceedings, and third party access to docu - ments on case files. On the first topic, the Milan CD has adopted a rather strict approach, dismissing at least two applications for intervention by third parties in proceedings pending before the court. In the proceedings for provisional measures between Insulet (patentee) and EOFlow (manu - facturer of the allegedly infringing product), an application to intervene was filed by Menarini (distributor of the product in suit) in support of EOFlow’s claims. The Milan CD dismissed the application (ORD_52068/2024) based on two main considerations, as follows. • Due to their urgent nature, interim injunction proceedings must not be overloaded, for example with interventions that could slow down the proceedings, and that could be more efficiently done in subsequent proceed - ings on the merits. Intervention in interim
The only instance, as of June 2025, where the Court of Appeal has been called to review a substantive decision by the Milan CD was in the Insulet v EOFlow case mentioned in 3.3 Pend- ing Cases . The Milan CD dismissed the request for prelimi - nary measures lodged by the applicant (on the ground that the patent was considered inva - lid due to lack of novelty), and in the second instance the Court of Appeal reversed the deci - sion, finding that the patent enforced was more likely than not valid and infringed, thus granting the requested preliminary injunction. Hearings (and interim conferences) held so far before the Milan CD have been well structured and in line with the emerging practice of other central and local divisions. The judge rapporteur provides a short introduction at the outset of the interim conference/hearing mentioning the main topics to be addressed, without providing the views of the panel on such issues. This is in line with the traditional approach of Italian judges in national practice. Whenever during an interim conference/hearing it is necessary to discuss information or docu - ments to be treated as confidential, the interim conference/hearing is briefly interrupted (and the audio recording thereof is paused as well) to allow any member of the public or other persons not part of the confidentiality club temporarily to exit the courtroom. 4. Procedural Issues 4.1 Hearing Structure
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