Gilead Sciences v Academy of Military Medical Sciences (CFI, 4 September 2025)

Date	4 September 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Milan (IT) Central Division- Section
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_34350/2025 · ORD_36084/2025
Parties	Gilead Sciences, Inc.

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 4 September 2025 (UPC_CFI_552/2025, ORD_36084/2025), the judge-rapporteur of the Milan Central Division declared inadmissible the request for a decision by default made by Gilead Sciences in its revocation action against the Academy of Military Medical Sciences’ patent EP 3 854 403, as the time limit for the defence had not expired. He held valid the service effected through the case management system on the firm Lavoix, named as representative in the request for unitary effect. For a proprietor based outside Europe, the registered representative thus becomes the point of service.

Question

May the statement for revocation be validly served, through the case management system, on the representative named by the proprietor in the request for unitary effect, and may a decision by default be sought before the time limit for the defence has expired?

Decision

Service was valid and the default request premature. A patent representative cannot raise objections without the proprietor’s authority (paragraphs 12 to 16), by opposing the default request, however, Lavoix acted as the defendant’s representative (paragraphs 22 to 25). The distinction between service within the system (Rules 271 et seq.) and outside it (Rules 273 et seq.) depends on the place of service, not the defendant’s seat (paragraphs 26 to 32). Service being complete on 7 July 2025 according to paragraph 33, the defence period runs until 8 September 2025, and the default request is inadmissible for now, although it may be lodged again (paragraphs 34 to 36, Rule 355.3).

Key points for practice

Practical point: the proprietor of a unitary patent should ensure that its registered representative alerts it immediately to any service, which may start the time limit for the defence.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 48
Rules of Procedure: Rules 9, 271, 273, 285, 355.1(a), 355.3, 356 and 361
European Patent Convention: Art. 134
Case law cited: No UPC decision is cited.

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: Written procedure (UPC), Court fees and costs (UPC).

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

claimantGilead Sciences, Inc.8 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: Generic application
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La signification au mandataire désigné dans la demande d'effet unitaire est régulière. La demande de décision par défaut, présentée avant l'expiration du délai de défense, est irrecevable.
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 3 854 403 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

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 3 854 403`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 3 other decision(s): Gilead Sciences v Academy of Military Medical Sciences (CFI, 4 May 202 · Academy of Military Medical Sciences v Gilead Sciences (CoA, 4 August · Gilead Sciences v Academy of Military Medical Sciences (CFI, 10 July 2	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.

Receive an alert

Weekly summary of new records and substantive updates matching what you follow. Address confirmed by email, unsubscribe at any time, one email per week even where several of your follows match.