2025-01-24 - LD Paris - Photon Wave v. Seoul Viosys - UPC_CFI_238/2024

The claimant’s argument that the Court cannot prohibit it from seeking revocation of the patent at issue, based on a breach of the principle of fairness, is not persuasive. This principle of fairness shall be combined with the principle of efficiency which also governs the rules of procedure before the UPC. It was up to the defendant and the intervener to be diligent. To avoid any dilatory strategy on the part of the defense, which would consist of having an intervener intervene late to delay the proceedings in bad faith to the detriment of the interests of the Claimant in the infringement action, and taking into account the fact that the intervener (under Rule 313.2 RoP) can only intervene to support the procedural strategy of the defendant, the panel rejected this request for an extension of time. The Court notes that the intervener will still have the possibility of acting independently before the UPC to challenge a patent that is, in his view, invalid, but outside the context of an infringement action pending before the local division seized of an action that is currently at the interim conference stage. The intervener cannot circumvent the rules set out in the Rules of Procedure on the intervener's role vis-à-vis the defendant in an infringement action that has already been unduly slowed.

The Paris Local Division issued this order rejecting a (independent) revocation action by the claimant, stating that it was not competent for such action. Prior to that action, the claimant had tried to intervene in infringement proceedings initiated by the defendant against another party.