Before the Paris Local Division, in a case where the defendant had forced an intervener into the proceedings pursuant to Rule 316A RoP (forced intervention), the intervener has obtained a period of one month for filing its Application to Intervene as well as for filing its Statement in Intervention. Contrary to Rule 316.2 RoP, which mentions a “further period” for filing the Statement in Intervention, the Court did not set any such further period.
Incidentally, the intervener’s one-month period for filing its Application to Intervene and its Statement in Intervention expired on March 19, 2024, which is almost identical to the end of the defendant’s three-month period for filing its Statement of Defence (March 18, 2024). The defendant’s Statement of Defence did not include a counterclaim for revocation of the patent.
The Court held that the intervener may not develop claims contrary to those of the party he supports and may not autonomously develop claims and procedural modalities different from those offered to the party it supports. Therefore, since the defendant’s term for filing a counterclaim also applies to the intervener, the intervener is not entitled to pose an own counterclaim after that term has expired. It would appear that, although not expressly stated, the Court considered that, in principle, an own counterclaim of the intervenient is admissible, albeit subject to the defendant’s terms.
In addition, the Court again rejected a request to change the language of the proceedings from French to English even though the language of the patent in question is English and the defendant itself, a French company and the only French party involved, previously and unsuccessfully had requested a change of the language of the proceedings from French to English. This shows that the bar for changing the language is very high.
Case number UPC_CFI_440/2023, order date May 6, 2024
In our view, the Court did not take sufficient account of the situation of the forced intervention. It is already challenging to set up a properly researched counterclaim of revocation within the three months granted to the defendant. To do so within one month could be considered outright impossible, especially as cooperation in a forced intervention cannot be expected. A corresponding obligation for the short term raises constitutional concerns.
Still, the possibility of a separate revocation action remains.
