F. Hoffman-La Roche v Rubin Medical (CFI, 11 April 2024)

Date	11 April 2024
Court	CFI
Division	Düsseldorf (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Preliminary objection
Registry reference	App_9340/2024 · ORD_13996/2024
Parties	F. Hoffman-La Roche AG, Roche Diabetes Care GmbH v. Rubin Medical ApS, c/o Diatom A/S, Tandem Diabetes Care Europe B.V.

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

Dhenne Avocats represents claimants and defendants in European patent disputes before the Unified Patent Court, including the Paris divisions.

Contact the firm

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By an order of 11 April 2024 (UPC_CFI_504/2023, ACT_597323/2023, App_9340/2024 and App_9705/2024), judge-rapporteur Thom of the Düsseldorf Local Division dismissed the preliminary objections (Rule 19.1(c) RoP) by which several defendants to the infringement action on EP 1 970 677 B1 brought by F. Hoffmann-La Roche AG and Roche Diabetes Care GmbH sought to have the proceedings continue in English. It also held the objection of VitalAire GmbH, Dinno Santé s.a.i. and Air Liquide Healthcare Nederland B.V. to be out of time. The order closes the preliminary objection route for challenging the language chosen and underlines how strictly time limits apply to paper filings.

Question

Can a preliminary objection be used to switch from German to English before a German local division, and is an objection filed on paper after a CMS failure admissible when it reaches the registry after the time limit?

Decision

The claimants validly chose German (Art. 49(2) UPCA and Rule 14.2(a) RoP). The exceptions in Rule 14.2(b) RoP do not apply, because the official language referred to is that of the Member State, which for Germany is German. A change under Art. 49(5) UPCA and Rule 323 RoP remains possible in theory, but a preliminary objection is the wrong vehicle, and English is not the language of the patent. The provisions leave no room for a case-by-case fairness assessment, so arguments of cost and convenience fail. As for the paper filing, permitted by Rule 4.2 RoP given a CMS failure shown by screenshots, it had to reach the sub-registry within the time limit (Rule 3.2 of the Registry Rules). Received on 23 February 2024, it was late, and a party answers for its agents’ errors. Leave to appeal was granted.

Key points for practice

Practical point: a challenge to the claimant’s choice of language belongs in an Art. 49(5) UPCA application, not a preliminary objection. A fallback paper filing must reach the registry before the time limit expires.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 49(1), (2) and (5)
Rules of Procedure: Rules 4.2, 14.2, 19.1(c) and 323

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.

Going further

Lexicon: Local and central divisions (UPC).

Dhenne Avocats blog: The Transitional Period and the UPC: Coordinating Two Judicial Orders.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: Pleading the Long Arm: What a UPC Statement of Claim Must Carry Beyond Jurisdiction, Valeo v. Bosch and the Redistribution of Cases Within the UPC (Kluwer Patent Blog).

Source and translations

Official source: Unified Patent Court registry link recorded in the record
Original language: not recorded
Translation available: no translation recorded the firm’s French record is a summary, not a translation
Date checked: not recorded

Only the official text is authoritative. A machine translation is never presented as official, republishing a third-party document requires a verified basis in rights, and a link to the source is preferred.

Follow this case

Proceedings, related decisions, appeals, parties and patents as recorded in the registry and in the Dhenne Avocats corpus. Each link states its source.

Proceedings

No case number recorded in this record.

Parties

claimantRoche Diabetes Care GmbH14 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendantTandem Diabetes Care Europe B.V.10 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
claimantF. Hoffman-La Roche AG6 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendantRubin Medical ApS, c4 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendanto Diatom A/S4 decisions in the corpus Follow this party

Exact name as it appears in the record, group affiliation only where sourced and dated.

Decisions in the same proceedings and documented appeals

No other decision in the corpus bears the same case number, and no appeal is documented in the corpus to date.

What the record states

Nature of the act: Preliminary objection
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): Les exceptions préliminaires tendant au passage à l'anglais sont rejetées. Celle de VitalAire, Dinno Santé et Air Liquide Healthcare Nederland est en outre tardive.
Appeal: No appeal documented in the corpus, this does not mean that no appeal was lodged.
Instance: First-instance decision, whether it has become final is not recorded.

Patents mentioned

EP 1 970 677 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

Roche Diabetes Care v VitalAire (CFI, 11 April 2024) cites this decision

Scope: Dhenne Avocats corpus. Registry-based links are marked “official number”; links derived from the analyses are marked as such. An erroneous link can be withdrawn without deleting any record.

Patents and standards

Publication	Role in the dispute	Family	Standard and declaration	Pool	Sources
`EP 1 970 677`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 5 other decision(s): F. Hoffmann-La Roche v Tandem Diabetes Care (CFI, 30 June 2025) · F. Hoffmann-La Roche v Tandem Diabetes Care (CFI, 18 June 2025) · F. Hoffmann-La Roche v Tandem Diabetes Care (CFI, 2 June 2025) · F. Hoffmann-La Roche v Tandem Diabetes Care (CFI, 20 May 2025) · F. Hoffman-La Roche v Tandem Diabetes Care (CFI, 14 March 2025)	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet links not checked mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis

The statuses “asserted in litigation”, “declared essential”, “listed by a pool” and “essentiality examined by a court” are distinct and may coexist. Validity, infringement and technical essentiality are different questions. Scope: patents cited in the decisions of the Dhenne Avocats corpus, with no essentiality score or prediction.

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