In its decision of 25 November 2025 concerning EP 3 646 825, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) Court of Appeal addressed procedural coordination between infringement and revocation tracks, the admissibility of sequential amendment requests, and core principles for claim construction and inventive step.
The decision sits at the intersection of substantive validity and infringement assessment across parallel actions and competence allocation (Central Division vs local division).
Background
The patent concerns a balloon-expandable transcatheter prosthetic heart valve system. Edwards (patentee) sued Meril India and Meril Germany for infringement before the Munich Local Division, while Meril Italy filed a direct revocation action before the Central Division (Paris). Edwards objected that the Central Division lacked competence because an infringement action “between the same parties” was already pending (Article 33(4) UPCA). Separately, Edwards pursued multiple amendment packages, culminating in a third, reduced set of requests in the direct revocation action.
The Central Division ultimately maintained the patent only in amended form (Auxiliary Request II), and the Munich Local Division found infringement of that maintained version. Multiple appeals followed on competence, amendment admissibility, validity, and territorial scope and proportionality of relief.
Key findings of the decision
Inventive step: UPC approach. The Court articulated a UPC inventive-step framework: identify the objective problem from the invention’s added contribution and technical teaching; avoid hindsight; assess whether the skilled person would (not merely could) arrive at the claimed solution from a realistic starting point, requiring a pointer or motivation (“Anlass”) (paras 131–136). Applying this, it upheld inventive step for Auxiliary Request II over the cited prior art, including where the prior art taught mixed cell structures and did not incentivise a fully hexagonal-cell frame (paras 145–153).
Claim construction and “non-claimed embodiments”. Reiterating that description and drawings are explanatory aids for both infringement and validity, the Court accepted that disclosed embodiments are generally within claim scope, but recognised an exception where the patent as a whole clearly teaches that a depicted embodiment is not claimed—e.g. where it illustrates a different technical specification not addressed by the claim teaching (paras 50, 68–70).
Competence and “same parties” (Article 33(4) UPCA). The Court of Appeal held that “same parties” requires identity of the parties. It accepted, in principle, that two entities may be treated as the same party where there is such identity of interests that a judgment would have res judicata effect against the other; however, it found no such identity between Meril Italy and Meril India/Meril Germany. Accordingly, the direct revocation action properly remained with the Central Division (see paras 27–31).
Admissibility of subsequent amendment requests. The Court confirmed that a defence to revocation may include an application to amend (Rule 49.2 RoP), and that later amendment requests require permission (Rules 50.2 jo 30.2 RoP). The Court emphasised a discretionary, circumstances-based assessment, including whether the amendment could have been made earlier with reasonable diligence and whether it unreasonably hinders the other party; appellate review is correspondingly limited (paras 33–35). On the facts, admitting Edwards’ third (streamlined) application remained within the first instance discretion (paras 35–37).
Added matter and divisional lineage. For the patentee’s Main Request and Auxiliary Request I, the Court affirmed revocation for added matter, stressing that in divisional scenarios Article 76(1) EPC applies across the application as filed and its parent and grandparent applications (paras 77–79, 80–88). The defect was framed as an impermissible extraction from a two-part definition in the earlier disclosure.
Analysis and implications
Substantively, the Court’s structured inventive-step guidance, alongside its insistence on a claim-as-a-whole comparison anchored in the technical teaching, provides a blueprint for UPC pleadings that seek to avoid hindsight while addressing both EPO-style and “holistic” national methodologies. Procedurally, the “same parties” interpretation limits the reach of Article 33(4) UPCA second sentence to true identity (with a narrow res judicata-style exception), leaving room for parallel infringement and direct revocation actions by different group entities. On amendments, the decision signals that alignment and streamlining across proceedings can justify later amendment packages, provided the opponent is not unfairly hampered and the court’s case-management discretion is respected.
Conclusion
The Court of Appeal set out a UPC-specific inventive-step methodology grounded in the invention’s objective problem and realistic starting points. The Court furthermore confirmed Central Division competence absent identity of parties, endorsed a discretionary approach to subsequent amendment requests, and clarified when disclosed embodiments may fall outside the claims.
