2024-11-25 - LD Paris - DexCom v. Abbott et al. - UPC_CFI_395/2023

In the UPC Rules of Procedure (RoP), case management powers are not limited to the stage of the proceedings that ends with the closure of the interim procedure, until when the Judge-Rapporteur is in charge of it. On the contrary, the Court, and in particular the Presiding Judge, could exercise his/her case management powers after the closure of the interim procedure. Even after the oral hearing since the case is pending the presiding judge remains in charge of the case management as foreseen in Art. 43 UPCA and Chapter 8 of the RoP on Case management. Therefore, the DEXCOM’s application based on R 334 and R 336 RoP is admissible. However, the Court considers that this request made at a very late stage of the proceedings is not justified, since the decision in question does not concern the patent at issue in the present case, but its parent patent, which discloses another invention with similar but also different features. It follows that there is no justification in the present case for an order authorizing the reopening of the debate after the Oral hearing.

The Paris Local Division dismissed an application "for the Court to communicate with the parties to instruct them about its wishes to comment on the decision rendered by the Regional Court of Munich" regarding the infringement of the parent patent of the patent in suit in the case at hand. The Court stated that there was no immeditate relevance of that decision as the patent was similar but still different.