Short Summary
This order was issued by the Court of First Instance in infringement proceedings concerning European patent EP 2 671 173, following a Court of Appeal determination that the claimant's appointed representative could not validly serve as a representative of the legal person due to holding extensive administrative and financial powers. The judge-rapporteur invited written submissions from the parties on the consequences of this inability to serve. The claimant requested that the representative be allowed to continue or, alternatively, be given time to correct the representation configuration, while the defendant sought rejection of the action as manifestly inadmissible and a default decision revoking the patent in the counterclaim proceedings.
Detailed Summary
This order was issued by the Court of First Instance in infringement action No. ACT_18406/2024 (UPC_CFI_164/2024) concerning European patent EP 2 671 173. The claimant and defendant in counterclaim is Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy, a Finnish company based in Helsinki. The defendant and claimant in counterclaim is Microsoft Corporation, a US company based in Redmond, represented by Tilman Müller-Stoy and Nadine Westermeyer of Bardehle Pagenberg. The panel consisted of Presiding Judge and Judge-Rapporteur Paolo Catallozzi, Legally Qualified Judge Tatyana Zhilova, and Technically Qualified Judge Wiem Samoud.
The dispute arose following an order issued by the Court of Appeal on 11 February 2025, which addressed an appeal against an earlier order of 16 September 2024 (ORD_41174/2024) issued by the Court of First Instance. The Court of Appeal had rejected the claimant's appeal regarding confidentiality protection and determined that the claimant's appointed representative could not validly serve as a representative of the legal person. The Court of Appeal held that no corporate representative of a legal person or any other natural person who has extensive administrative and financial powers within the legal person—whether through holding a high-level management or administrative position or holding a significant amount of shares—may serve as a representative of that legal person, regardless of whether they are qualified to act as a representative under Art. 48(1) or (2) UPCA. Following this determination, the judge-rapporteur requested written submissions from the parties on the issue of the representative's inability to serve. The claimant requested that the Court allow the representative to continue representing the claimant, and only in the alternative, that the claimant be ordered to correct the representation configuration to ensure sufficient independence in the area of patent law. The defendant requested that the infringement action be rejected as manifestly inadmissible pursuant to Rule 361 RoP, that a default decision be issued revoking the patent at issue in its entirety in the counterclaim proceedings (CC_43155/2024 UPC_CFI_433/2024), that the claimant bear all legal costs and expenses, and that leave to appeal be granted if the Rule 361 application were rejected.
& Analysis: The Court of Appeal's order established that the claimant's representative enjoyed extensive administrative and financial powers within Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy and, as such, was not in a position to represent the company. The Court of Appeal further stated that it was for the Court of First Instance to decide whether the representative could represent the claimant in the pending infringement proceedings, and that when deciding this issue, the interpretation of the rules concerning representation set out in the Court of Appeal's order should be applied.
Final Order & Ruling: The headnote of the order establishes an important procedural principle: should the Court determine that a party's representative is unable to validly represent said party and grant a period within which to appoint a new representative, it may require that such appointment be accompanied by a statement of ratification by the new representative of the actions undertaken by the representative lacking valid representative powers. The keywords for this order are 'representatives.'
Practitioner Note
This case demonstrates the evidentiary and procedural standards applied in patent matters before Paris (FR) Central Division - Seat. Understanding the court's reasoning in Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy vs Microsoft Corporation is valuable context for structuring arguments or assessing risk in similar proceedings.
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