2026-06-18 - CoA - Occlutech v. Lepu Medical - UPC-COA-0000907/2025

The Court of Appeal (5-judge panel, President Grabinski presiding) granted Occlutech's appeal against the Düsseldorf LD's refusal of a preliminary injunction over EP 1 998 686 (a septal occlusion device) and itself granted a cross-border PI against Lepu's MemoCarna ASD/VSD products. The LD had refused the PI solely because it could not establish with sufficient certainty that the attacked embodiments comprise a braiding of more than one wire (claim element 1.1). Applying the NanoString claim-construction principles (Art. 69 EPC), the CoA held that while claim 1 requires a braiding of multiple wires or threads, it is not limited to any particular manufacturing process and reads on a device whose multi-wire braiding results from cutting a single starting wire during manufacture; since Lepu conceded on appeal that the wire is cut to length, infringement of element 1.1 was no longer in dispute. The CoA further construed 'completely closed proximal wall' (element 1.5) as referring to the form of the braiding rather than the density of its mesh — a coarse mesh with openings still satisfies the feature — and read the 'continuous surface'/'proximal end' features (1.5.1/1.5.2) functionally, so that only a depression or protrusion with a material effect on endothelialization or embolization defeats them. It disregarded Lepu's new novelty attack based on the Wang master's thesis under Art. 73(4) UPCA and R. 222.2 RoP, confirmed novelty over the cited Chinese applications, treated the absent Lepu as relying only on its written case (R. 116/240 RoP), and rejected Lepu's request for security for enforcement.