Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH, Sanofi-Aventis Groupe S.A. and Regeneron Pharmaceuticals Inc. v AMGEN, INC, Order UPC Court of Appeal, 18 February 2026, UPC_CoA_528/2024 and UPC_CoA_529/2024
This is a short decision that follows on from the important decision of the Court of Appeal on 25 November 2025 regarding the approach that the UPC should follow for the assessment of inventive step. On 26 January 2026, Sanofi/Regeneron filed an application for rehearing of the 25 November 2025 appeal (on the basis that the decision was not based on grounds which had been submitted by the parties or introduced by an order of the Court of Appeal) and further requested the Court of Appeal to order that the lodging of the application for rehearing had suspensive effect. Amgen opposed this application and request.
The Court of Appeal held that the request for suspensive effect was admissible but must be dismissed. R. 252 RoP states that the lodging of an application for rehearing does not have suspensive effect unless the Court of Appeal decides otherwise. In this case Sanofi/Regeneron had failed to provide any argument in supplied of their application for suspensive effect – they had merely presented arguments for a rehearing. In addition, the 25 November 2025 decision had allowed the appeal against the decision of the CFI holding that the patent in suit was invalid, meaning that the patent remained valid and in force. There was accordingly no aspect of the November decision regarding the patent that could be suspended pending the hearing of the application for rehearing. If Sanofi/Regeneron were seeking a further stay of the infringement proceedings, that could not be realized by means of an application for suspensive effect regarding the decision on validity that had rejected the revocation requests.
A copy of the Order can be found here.
