Meril Life Sciences v Edwards Lifesciences (CFI, 17 September 2024)

Date	17 September 2024
Court	CFI
Division	Paris (FR) Central Division - Seat
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_45333/2024 · ORD_45922/2024
Parties	Meril Italy srl, Meril GmbH, Meril Life Science Private Limited

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.

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Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By an order of 17 September 2024 (UPC_CFI_189/2024, ACT_22275/2024, App_45333/2024, ORD_45922/2024), the judge-rapporteur of panel 2 of the Paris Central Division (P. Catallozzi) rejected the request by Meril Life Sciences Private Ltd., Meril GmbH and Meril Italy S.r.l. to have Edwards Lifesciences Corporation’s counterclaim for infringement declared inadmissible, in the action for revocation of EP 4 151 181. He retrospectively extended the Rule 49 time limit to 23 July 2024 and refused leave to appeal. The order accepts that a malfunction of the case management system (CMS) can justify an extension after the event.

Question

Can a counterclaim for infringement lodged in the correct CMS workflow after the two-month period under Rule 49 has expired be saved by a retrospective extension under Rule 9.3?

Decision

The late filing was undisputed (paragraph 6). The evidence supported Edwards’ account: technical problems prevented filing in the correct workflow on 16 July 2024, a filing under Rule 9 was made the same day and the court was informed by email (paragraphs 7 to 11). Extensions are to be used cautiously, in exceptional cases where an event makes timely filing objectively impossible or very difficult (paragraph 12). That was the case here: the problem appeared to lie with the CMS rather than operator error, and Edwards acted promptly (paragraphs 13 to 15). Meril’s rights of defence were not affected, its time to respond running from service (paragraph 18), Edwards’ conduct will be taken into account when costs are decided (paragraph 19).

Key points for practice

Practical point: where the CMS fails, filing the same day under Rule 9 and informing the court opens the way to a retrospective extension.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 9, 49 and 264
Case law cited: Düsseldorf Local Division, 20 April 2024, UPC_CFI_355/2023, Roche Diabetes Care, Paris Central Division, 20 February 2024

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.

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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

claimantMeril GmbH45 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
claimantMeril Italy srl19 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
claimantMeril Life Science Private Limited2 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 demande d'irrecevabilité est rejetée et le délai de la règle 49 est prorogé rétroactivement au 23 juillet 2024, le dépôt tardif étant imputable à un dysfonctionnement du CMS. L'autorisation d'appel est refusée.
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 4 151 181 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

Tandem Diabetes Care v Roche Diabetes Care (CFI, ORD_9060/2024, 20 February 2024) cited in this record

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 4 151 181`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 4 other decision(s): Meril Life Sciences v Edwards Lifesciences (CFI, 20 October 2025) · Meril Italy v SWAT Medical (CFI, 8 January 2025) · Edwards Lifesciences v Meril Life Sciences (CFI, 8 October 2024) · Meril Italy v Edwards Lifesciences (CFI, 23 September 2024)	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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