2025-07-22 - CD Milan - EOFLOW v. Insulet - UPC_CFI_597/2024

Was ist diese UPC-Entscheidung?

Zusammenfassung: The Milan Central Division dismissed a revocation action by default because its claimant refused to lodge ordered security, and then deliberately declined to decide the companion infringement counterclaim the same way. The headnote separates the two default routes: a decision by default for a procedural violation dismisses the case, whereas a decision by default against a defendant may be given only where the file contains sufficient, precise and consistent evidence to justify the remedy — the sanction is losing the case, not losing the patent or being declared an infringer. The Court therefore held an oral hearing and decided infringement on the evidence. On construction it applied a functional reading and warned against result-oriented literalism: a claim term must be read for its principal functional meaning in the patent's own language rather than stretched or narrowed to escape infringement, a dependent claim cannot contradict the same term in the independent claim, and a step reciting that a component passes through a mechanism is read dynamically, in the assembled state. An exhaustion defence failed because consent must be unequivocally demonstrated and the objection was not tied to individualised products, and a settlement agreement filed days before the hearing without leave was excluded as contrary to the front-loaded procedure. The costs ruling is the third headnote: the ceiling applies per instance regardless of the number of parties or patents, so where a manufacturer and its distributor are sued in parallel on the same patent and the same act, costs are assessed on a unitary basis and a settlement payment received in the parallel action is credited.

Quelle und Fundstellen

Quelle: UPC Case File

Aktenzeichen: UPC_CFI_597/2024