2026-08-21 - CoA - SharkNinja v. Seb - UPC-COA-0000061/2026

Where two patents are the subject of the proceedings and the claim or application is successful in respect of only one patent, it is generally appropriate to apportion the costs in proportion to the values of the two patents. However, it may also be regarded as appropriate to order the unsuccessful party to bear the costs attributable to the respective patent.

The Court of Appeal set aside the Paris Local Division's refusal of provisional measures and ordered a preliminary injunction for France and Germany, holding that the patent is more likely valid than invalid and more likely than not infringed. On construction it applied the rule that identical terms in one claim carry the same meaning unless the description and the function of the features indicate otherwise, held that covering the chamber requires no airtight closure, and held that a second lid is "configured to couple" wherever it has its own means of interaction — a complementary press-fit shape suffices, and support from an external part does not remove that interaction. On novelty it held that an implicit disclosure exists only where the skilled person would inevitably regard the feature as necessarily implied, that the prior document must be read as a whole from the skilled person's perspective at the priority date, and that expert opinions directed at single figures rather than the whole disclosure are unsuitable, while patent documents do not generally show common general knowledge. Evidence filed for the first time on appeal was disregarded under R. 222.2 RoP. On the balance of interests it confirmed that irreparable harm is not a precondition, that a risk of lost sales between directly competing, interchangeable products suffices, and that speculative further invalidity grounds carry no weight. The headnote concerns costs: where two patents are in issue and the applicant succeeds on only one, costs are generally apportioned in proportion to the values of the patents, but it may also be appropriate to make the unsuccessful party bear the costs attributable to the respective patent.