Today, ip fray shared three pieces of UPC-related news on LinkedIn in two separate posts you can find below for your convenience.
(1) New ruling on language of proceedings by President of Court of First Instance
The President of the UPC's Court of First Instance, Florence Butin, granted a motion to switch the language of proceedings from German to English (the language of the patent) brought by Samsung Electronics and opposed by Headwater Research.
The defendants are four Samsung entities, each in a different country (Germany, France, The Netherlands, South Korea). English is not an official language in any of those countries, but Samsung's German subsidiary (the first-named defendant whom the plaintiff claimed to do a favor by choosing German as the language of proceedings) is merely a sales, marketing and service organization, while the engineers whose knowledge is key to Samsung's defenses are in Korea.
Samsung brought that motion in late April, about three months after the complaint was filed. Samsung narrowed its request by not demanding translations to English of any documents already provided.
The nationality and native language of the judges are not taken into consideration by the UPC in its decisions on the language of proceedings, at least not when (1) it's about switching to English and (2) English is one of the official languages of the division in question (here, Dusseldorf Local Division). Moreover, English is considered the language of communication between different UPC divisions.
The plaintiff tried to make an efficiency argument and possibly also one concerning the quality of the decision. In reality, ip fray considers it a safe assumption that the plaintiff was just interested in making sure that a German judge would be the rapporteur. The panel consists of Dusseldorf-based judges Bérénice Thom and Ronny Thomas, and Danish judge Peter Agergaard. German judges have a plaintiff-friendly reputation.
The fact that there are parallel proceedings in German between the parties before the Munich I Regional Court didn't bear weight with President Butin either.
Samsung explained that English was the language of communication within Samsung at the global level, a fact that was undisputed.
President Butin relied heavily on the Court of Appeal's April 17, 2024 decision in a 10x Genomics v. Curio case (UPC_CofA_101/2024, Apl_12116/2024) according to which all relevant circumstances must be considered, but in case of doubt, the defendant's interests are given more weight. She wrote that "[i]t can be inferred from all these observations that the current use of German, although impairing both parties, is more detrimental to Samsung which did not choose the language in which it is being sued and needs to organize its defence in English before the submissions are translated."
Headwater Research (who opposed the language change) is represented by Eisenführ Speiser's Dr. Michael Schneider and Jochen Ehlers. Samsung (whose motion succeeded) is represented by HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER's Martin Köhler.
(2) New infringement action #1: a second Avago v. Tesla case before the UPC
Avago Technologies (Broadcom) v. Tesla, ACT_24735/2024 (Munich Local Division)
EP1770912 (method and system for 10BASE-T start-up)
The first UPC case in this dispute (ACT_462984/2023) was filed about a year ago (also in Munich) over EP1838002 (programmable hybrid transmitter) and is scheduled to be heard on June 19. Apparently Avago/Broadcom wants to up the pressure on Tesla to settle.
Panel: Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann, Judge Tobias Pichlmaier, and Judge Walter Schober (Vienna)
Counsel: for Avago, EIP's Florian Schmidt-Bogatzky; for Tesla, Quinn Emanuel's Dr. Marcus Grosch
(3) New infringement action #2: Sanofi v. STADA
(same LinkedIn post as item 2 above)
Sanofi v. STADA Group, ACT_16116/2024 (Munich Local Division)
EP2493466 (novel antitumoral use of cabazitaxel)
Panel: Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann, Judge Tobias Pichlmaier, third and potentially fourth member TBD
counsel: for Sanofi, Herbert Smith Freehills's Frédéric Chevallier; for Stada, Preu Bohlig & Partner's Daniel Hoppe
This message was published Friday, May 31st 2024 at 12:47PM Eastern Standard Time (US)