2026-07-15 - CoA - Siemens Healthcare v. Hologic - UPC-COA-0000093/2026

The principle of the right to be heard according to Art. 76(2) UPCA obliges the court to take note of and give due consideration to the submissions of the parties to the proceedings. Among other things, this principle requires the court to deal with the essential substance of a party’s submissions and, insofar as they relate to a central issue in the proceedings in question, to address them in its reasoning. An infringement of this duty must be presumed if the grounds for the court’s decision allow only the conclusion that the court has completely disregarded the party’s submissions, or if the grounds are based on an interpretation that captures, at most, the literal wording but not the meaning of the party’s submissions. The right to be heard does not require the court to expressly and exhaustively address each and every argument in detail in its decision. At least the parties’ core arguments must be reflected in it.

The Court of Appeal (Voß, Panel 3) rejected Siemens Healthineers' application for suspensive effect (Art. 74(1) UPCA) of its appeal against the Düsseldorf Local Division's decision of 10 June 2026, which had found infringement of EP 2 352 431 and dismissed the revocation counterclaim. The Court restated that an appeal has no suspensive effect unless the appellant's interest in the status quo exceptionally outweighs the respondent's — for instance where the impugned decision is manifestly erroneous (clearly untenable on a summary assessment) or the appeal would otherwise become devoid of purpose — and that an infringement of the right to be heard can also justify suspensive effect if a different outcome cannot be ruled out, the applicant bearing the burden of establishing exceptional circumstances. On summary examination it found no manifest error in the Local Division's functional construction of feature 4.1 (the effective focal spot need not be exactly fixed): the LD had cited the correct construction principles and reasoned its interpretation, and a mere disagreement with that interpretation — including on numerical values — is not a manifest error, correctness being a matter for the appeal. It rejected the right-to-be-heard complaint: the Local Division had taken note of and reflected the appellants' core arguments on 'in one position', and Art. 76(2)/77(1) UPCA and R. 350.4 RoP do not require the court to address every argument exhaustively. Finally it held the injunction against the two non-manufacturing defendants covering 'making' not manifestly erroneous, an established infringement generally sufficing to establish a risk of further infringement through other acts of use (Dyson v Dreame).