Meril GmbH and Meril Life Sciences Pvt Ltd. v. Edwards Lifesciences Corporation, Decision of the Court of Appeal of the UPC concerning EP 3 646 825, 18 April 2025, Reference no. App_9095/2025; UPC_CoA_166/2025; ORD_10080/2025
On 18 April 2025, the UPC Court of Appeal (CoA) rejected an application for a stay of the enforcement of a permanent injunction granted by the Munich Local Division (LD) against Meril on 15 November 2024 for infringing Edwards’ European patent EP 3 646 825 (EP 825).
Background
This judgment forms part of a long-standing dispute between the two companies. EP 825 protects a “system comprising a prosthetic valve and a delivery catheter”. The dispute is focused on second generation transcatheter heart valves which Meril sells under the brand name Myval Octacor. The infringement action was brought in the Munich LD in August 2023.
A standalone revocation action was brought by Meril Italy in the Paris Central Division (CD) whilst two counterclaims for revocation were brought by the other two Meril entities (named in the original infringement proceedings) in the Munich LD. These revocation actions were later consolidated. The Paris CD then upheld the patent in amended form on 19 July 2024 (see analysis here). Meril and Meril Italy lodged appeals against this decision, requesting that the Court of Appeal set aside the decision and revoke the patent at issue.
On 15 November 2024, Edwards successfully obtained an injunction in the Munich LD against Meril in 16 UPC member countries for infringing EP 825. Meril was ordered to cease and desist from further infringements and recall and destroy infringing goods (see analysis here).
On 15 January 2025, Meril appealed this decision, requesting that the CoA set aside the decision to the extent that Edwards’ requests were granted and dismiss the action. On 25 February 2025, Meril then filed an application for suspensive effect of its appeal, or alternatively, for a stay of the enforcement of the decision. Edwards requested that the application be dismissed in its entirety or, in the alternative, that the Munich LD’s decision remain enforceable subject to the provision of security by Edwards.
Meril’s Arguments
Meril argued that the Munich LD’s decision was manifestly erroneous, for various reasons including the Court violating the principles of claim construction and the Court’s failure to consider relevant evidence and arguments from Meril. Meril also argued that the Munich LD’s decision is not enforceable as the scope of the injunction is not clear. An additional argument was that the appeal against the decision to allow Edwards to publish the Munich LD decision would become devoid of purpose if suspensive effect was not ordered.
Decision
The CoA made it clear that such an application for an appeal to have suspensive effect may only be granted if the circumstances of the case justify an exception to the principle that an appeal shall have no suspensive effect, such as if the appealed decision is manifestly erroneous, or if the appeal becomes devoid of purpose in the absence of suspensive effect (Court of Appeal 19 June 2024, UPC_CoA_301/2024 APL_33746/2024 App_35055/2024 – ICPillar vs. ARM).
The CoA stated that Meril failed to show the appeal was devoid of purpose as Meril had not demonstrated granting suspensive effect is necessary to prevent Edwards from publishing the Munich LD decision especially when Edwards had declared they would not publish the decision. The CoA also found that Meril had failed to show that the Munich LD’s decision was manifestly erroneous, i.e., factual findings or legal considerations that are clearly untenable even on the basis of a summary assessment (Court of Appeal 29 October 2024, UPC_CoA_549/2024 APL_51838/2024 App_53031/2024 – Belkin vs. Philips). The CoA also rejected the arguments that the scope of the injunction was not clear and that Meril’s right to be heard had been violated.
This judgment shows that to successfully obtain an enforcement stay, extremely convincing arguments will need to be put forward to the CoA, and that it may perhaps be preferable to stick to a few strong arguments as opposed to setting out a greater number of less convincing arguments.
The order is here.
