The Court of Appeal ruled for the first time upon the infringement dispute between Amgen, Sanofi and Regeneron over cholesterol-lowering drugs. The ruling clarified when the deadline for the statement of defense begins for defendants.
The local division of Munich ruled in one of its previous decisions that the deadline for the defendant to file a statement of defense begins when the latter has been served on him, even though the attachments are missing. Other opinions have been heard too, such as from the local division in Milan or the Central division in Munich. The Court if Appeal decided that the deadline does not start until the upload of the attachments as well. So, even though the claim may have been served, the deadline does not start to run until the lodgement of all the attachments.
Consequently, the three-month deadline for the statement of Sanofi and Regeneron, would have begun on 11 July 2023, even though Amgen did not upload its attachments to the UPC CMS system until 10 August. However, the UPC Court of Appeal has now highlighted that the deadline for Sanofi and Regeneron began on 10 August, when the uploading of the attachments took place. This means that the deadline will not expire before the 10th of November.