UPC CFI 258/2025

The Central Division (Paris seat) granted the revocation action filed by Emporia UK and Ireland Ltd. and declared European patent EP 3 926 698 B1 invalid to the extent of claims 2, 3, 7, 8, 10 and 11 (claims 1, 4, 5, 6 and 9 having already been declared invalid by the Court of Appeal) with effect in Austria, Belgium, Germany, France, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands and Sweden. The ground of invalidity was added subject-matter: the openings near the edge of the substrate in feature 5.2 are inextricably linked to openings in the inner region of the device, and isolating one from the other constitutes an unallowable intermediate generalization. All auxiliary requests filed by the defendant were rejected as none addressed the identified defect.

The Central Division Paris rejected Seoul Viosys Co., Ltd.'s preliminary objection requesting dismissal of Emporia UK and Ireland Ltd.'s revocation action as inadmissible under Art. 33(4) UPCA. Seoul Viosys argued that Emporia was a 'straw company' acting as a nominee for ex-pert klein GmbH (the defendant in parallel infringement proceedings before the Court of Appeal), and therefore constituted the 'same party'. The Court held that the 'straw company' theory has a legal basis in EU law and may be relevant under Art. 33(4) UPCA, but that mere coordination of litigation strategies between a distributor and its supplier does not constitute proof that one acts as a nominee for the other.