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Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, 24 January 2024)

Date24 January 2024
CourtCFI
DivisionMunich (DE) Central Division - Section
Type of actionRevocation Action
Case number(s)UPC_CFI_1/2023
Registry referenceORD_2233/2024 · UPC_CFI_1/2023
PartiesSanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH v. Amgen, Inc.

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

Case timeline

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 order of 24 January 2024 (UPC_CFI_1/2023, ORD_2233/2024), the judge-rapporteur of the Munich Central Division admitted into Sanofi’s revocation action against Amgen’s EP 3 666 797 a six-page letter and expert declarations responding to points first raised in the rejoinder, and refused Amgen a further round of written pleadings. The order clarifies when an additional written submission is allowed in deliberately front-loaded proceedings.

Question

The claimants applied under Rule 9.1 RoP for their letter of 15 January 2024 to be admitted. Amgen argued that the request was premature, since the written procedure should be closed, and asked in the alternative to reply in turn, with further expert declarations.

Decision

Rule 9.1 allows the court to order a step « at any stage of the proceedings », including after the exchange of pleadings under Rule 43, so the request was not premature. There is no automatic right to respond to a rejoinder, the number of written pleadings being limited in front-loaded proceedings. The court must therefore assess whether the request justifies a departure. It did here: the material is short and deals only with a few new points introduced by the expert declarations filed with the rejoinder. The right to be heard does not require a further exchange, since Amgen can address the points at the oral hearing. The interim conference of 7 February 2024 will not take place and the written procedure is to close on 6 February 2024.

Key points for practice

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure
Rules 9.1, 35, 36, 43, 58, 101, 103, 104 and 333, Preamble paragraphs 2, 4 and 7
Case law cited
None.

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.


Decisions in the same proceedings

Going further

Lexicon: Revocation action.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: G 1/25, Take Three: Anything You Leave in the Description May Be Used Against You (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

  • UPC_CFI_1/2023 official number

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Parties

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

Decisions in the same proceedings and documented appeals

  1. 29 June 2023 Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, 29 June 2023) Revocation Action · UPC_CFI_1/2023

    Les documents déposés par les sociétés Sanofi sont admis comme pièces de la demande en nullité, réputée signifiée à Amgen le 29 juin 2023.

  2. 24 August 2023 Amgen v Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland (CFI, 24 August 2023) Preliminary objection · UPC_CFI_1/2023

    L'action en nullité déposée au greffe de Luxembourg à 11 h 26 précède l'action en contrefaçon déposée à 11 h 45, la division centrale est compétente et l'exception préliminaire est rejetée.

  3. 20 September 2023 Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, 20 September 2023) Revocation Action · UPC_CFI_1/2023

    Le juge rapporteur rejette la demande d'accès aux écritures et pièces d'un mandataire souhaitant se forger une opinion sur la validité du brevet, faute de motif concret et vérifiable, et autorise l'appel.

  4. 24 January 2024 Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, 24 January 2024) Revocation Action · UPC_CFI_1/2023
  5. 24 February 2024 Sanofi v Amgen (CFI, 24 February 2024) Revocation Action · UPC_CFI_1/2023

    L'action en nullité de Sanofi et la demande reconventionnelle en nullité de Regeneron contre le brevet d'Amgen sont instruites conjointement en vue d'une audience le 4 juin 2024, la valeur de chaque action étant fixée à 100 millions d'euros.

What the record states

Nature of the act
Revocation Action
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary)
Le juge rapporteur admet la lettre des demanderesses et ses déclarations d'experts répondant à des points nouveaux de la duplique, et rejette les demandes d'Amgen tendant à la clôture immédiate ou à une réplique supplémentaire.
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

Related decisions cited in the analyses

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

PublicationRole in the disputeFamilyStandard and declarationPoolSources
EP 3 666 797
Antigen binding proteins to proprotein convertase subtilisin kexin type 9 (PCSK9)
recorded proprietor: Amgen Inc		Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified)
Also mentioned in 21 other decision(s): Amgen v Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland (CoA, 25 November 2025) · Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, 16 July 2024) · Regeneron Pharmaceuticals v Amgen (CFI, 16 July 2024) · SANOFI-AVENTIS DEUTSCHLAND v AMGEN (CoA, 25 March 2026) · SANOFI-AVENTIS DEUTSCHLAND v AMGEN (CoA, 18 February 2026) · Dehns v Regeneron Pharmaceuticals (CFI, 22 October 2024) · Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, ORD_47230/2024, 22 October 20 · Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland v Amgen (CFI, ORD_47238/2024, 22 October 20		not recordednot recordednot recordedEspacenet · European Patent Register
existence and title of the publication checked on 30 October 2026 (Google Patents, Espacenet and Register links are not checked automatically)
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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