Today's quick tip is about preliminary injunction
proceedings for patent infringement in Germany.
According to the established case law of the most prominent
German appellate courts in Duesseldorf and Karlsruhe, a successful
PI request – as a rule – requires a battle-tested
patent. That means the patent must have survived first-instance
opposition or nullity proceedings. The appellate court of Munich
joined the club at the end of 2019, aligning its case law to
Duesseldorf and Karlsruhe, and lifted a PI granted by the
first-instance Munich court.
On January 19, 2021, the first-instance Munich court retaliated
and challenged the appellate courts practice before the CJEU.
Specifically, the Munich court referred the question to the CJEU
whether the appellate courts' practice to generally reject a PI
request in case the patent in suit has not yet survived first
instance opposition or nullity proceedings is in line with Art. 9
para. 1 of the European
