UPC refuses preliminary injunction over earlier opt-out

The Unified Patent Court’s Helsinki division rejected a preliminary injunction request from sports advertising specialist AIM in its lawsuit against rival Supponor yesterday, September 21.

A panel made up of Presiding Judge Petri Rinkinen, and Judges Samuel Granata, Mélanie Bessaud, and Eric Augarde handed down the decision after a one-day hearing.

AIM’s PI request failed because it initially opted the asserted patent out of the UPC system before the court opened on June 1.

The sports advertising company later tried to withdraw the opt-out, but the Helsinki court ruled yesterday that it couldn’t because of parallel national proceedings in England and Germany.

Lawyers from Roschier, Powell Gilbert, Rospatt Osten Pross, and Noerr represented AIM in the UPC proceedings, while Hogan Lovells acted for Supponor.

AIM filed the UPC suit in July, as part of a wider dispute in which German and English courts have found Supponor to have infringed valid AIM patents.

Appeals stemming from those decisions are pending.

Yesterday marked the latest in a string of decisions from the new court, which started hearing cases in June.

Earlier this week, the Munich local division granted the first PI to follow a full oral hearing between the parties, in favour of 10x Genomics against NanoString.

On Wednesday, September 13 the Vienna local division refused a PI in a suit between coffeemaker rivals Cup&Cino and Alpina.