Bird & Bird to Play Key Role as UPC Schedules First Substantive Hearings

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has reached another significant milestone as it announces the dates for its first-ever substantive hearings. These hearings will determine whether to grant preliminary injunctions against NanoString Technologies, following two applications by 10x Genomics. Oliver Jan Jüngst and his team in Düsseldorf and Munich including lawyers Moritz Schroeder, Alexander Bothe and patent attorneys Daniela Kinkeldey, Jan van Dieck, Anna Schadel and Anne Halbach, will be at the forefront, playing a crucial role in representing NanoString Technologies, throughout the proceedings.

Scheduled to take place on September 5-6 and 19 at the Munich local division of the UPC, these hearings come in just 3.5 months after 10x Genomics filed its applications.

The upcoming hearings are part of a complex and intriguing cross-border dispute between 10x Genomics and NanoString Technologies, which has seen various developments in recent weeks. The focus of the UPC hearings will be on two of the three actions filed by 10x Genomics on the court's inaugural day in June. These actions, identified as UPC_CFI_2/2023 and UPC_CFI_17/2023, aim to obtain preliminary injunctions based on EP 2 794 928 and EP 4 108 782 B1, both related to in situ detection of analytes. The '928 patent is validated in Germany, France, and the Netherlands, while the '782 patent is a unitary patent covering all 17 countries under the court's jurisdiction, making it the first-ever unitary patent asserted at the UPC.