UPC_CFI_140/2024

METHOD AND PRODUCT FOR LOCALISED OR SPATIAL DETECTION OF NUCLEIC ACID IN A TISSUE SAMPLE

InfringementMain Infringement ActionDusseldorf LDInfringementCase Closed

Overview Decisions Reasoning Citations Documents Timeline

Coverage: Partial.Reasoning extracted with partial coverage — some sections may be incomplete.

Plain-English summary

10x Genomics, Inc. sued Curio Bioscience Inc. for infringement of EP 2 697 391 B1, a patent for localised/spatial detection of nucleic acid in tissue samples (spatial transcriptomics), at the Düsseldorf Local Division. The court found infringement and ordered Curio to cease infringing acts, recall products from commerce, permanently remove them from distribution, provide a full accounting, and pay damages for acts from 30 November 2019 onwards, with penalty payments of up to EUR 100,000 per day for non-compliance.

Accepted arguments

What the court agreed with — by party.

Infringement of EP 2 697 391 B1 by Curio Bioscience's spatial transcriptomics products
ClaimantLegal basis: Art. 25 UPCA
Note: The Düsseldorf Local Division found Curio Bioscience liable for infringing 10x Genomics' spatial transcriptomics patent and granted an injunction, recall, removal from commerce, and accounting.
First reference to additional subclaims at oral hearing admissible where feature was already in dispute and subclaims merely provide additional arguments
Claimant
Note: Court articulated this as a headnote, citing the Court of Appeal's Insulet v. EOFlow ruling that claim construction is a matter of law and the court construes claims independently.

Rejected arguments

What the court did not agree with — and why.

Remaining requests in the infringement action
Claimant
Reason: Action dismissed in other respects (no detail in excerpt).

Key legal principles

Doctrines and rules cited in the reasoning.

Claim construction is a matter of law; court must independently construe claims (citing UPC_CoA_768/2024 Insulet v EOFlow)First reference to subclaims at oral hearing admissible if the feature was already in dispute and subclaims add arguments only Confidentiality orders under R. 262A RoP in summary proceedings do not preclude a separate order in main proceedings Number of persons with access to confidential information should not be unlimited but must enable effective representation

Browse other cases on this principle.

Claim construction notes

The court confirmed that claim construction is a matter of law and must be performed independently by the court. On subclaim admissibility, the court held that first reference to subclaims at oral hearing is admissible where the disputed feature was already in issue and the subclaims provide additional legal arguments rather than new factual assertions.