ToolGen v Vertex Pharmaceuticals (CFI, 15 September 2026)

Date	15 September 2026
Court	CFI
Division	The Hague (NL) Local Division
Type of action	Infringement Action
Case number(s)	UPC_CFI_1830/2026
Registry reference	UPC-CFI-0001830/2026
Parties	ToolGen, Inc. v. Vertex Pharmaceuticals Incorporated, Lonza Netherlands 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.

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Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By order of 15 September 2026 (UPC_CFI_1830/2026), the judge-rapporteur of The Hague Local Division dismissed two applications by Vertex Pharmaceuticals and Lonza Netherlands in ToolGen’s infringement action based on EP 4 397 760 (genome editing using guide RNA and Cas protein), directed at Casgevy. An order under Rule 190 RoP for production of documents disclosed in English proceedings subject to the CPR 31.22 undertaking was refused: the UPC cannot be used to circumvent the restrictions on use imposed by the English court. The order matters for parallel litigation in the United Kingdom and before the UPC.

Question

Can a party obtain from the UPC production of documents disclosed in English proceedings without first asking the English court for permission to use them elsewhere? Are the claims for injunctive relief concerning Casgevy manifestly inadmissible under Rule 361 RoP?

Decision

The documents are not public and were obtained solely for the English proceedings. The proper route was an application for permission to the English court, which the defendants had not made. The Rule 190 application was dismissed without any further need to examine proportionality (paragraphs 4 to 8). Rule 361 RoP applies only to clear-cut cases. The challenge to the injunctive relief requires an assessment of fact, law and evidence that belongs to the main proceedings (paragraphs 9 and 10). The deadline for the statement of defence was confirmed as 25 September 2026, and the parties were invited to comment on Art. 33(3) UPCA, a counterclaim for revocation having been announced (paragraph 11).

Key points for practice

Documents covered by the CPR 31.22 undertaking can be obtained before the UPC only after permission from the English court. Failure to seek it weighs against production.
Practical point: Rule 361 RoP is not a means of obtaining an early ruling on a substantive challenge to the relief sought.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 33(3)
Rules of Procedure: Rules 9.3, 102.2, 190, 333 and 361
Case law cited: Microsoft v Suinno, Court of Appeal, 15 October 2024, Ericsson v Transsion, Lisbon Local Division, 26 May 2026.

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: Supplementary protection certificate (SPC), Biosimilar medicinal product, Launch at risk.

Dhenne Avocats blog: Pharmaceutical patents and the UPC: is the Court hostile to them?.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: The Launch Letter: How Generics and Biosimilars Should Write to Avoid UPC Urgency (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.

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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

UPC_CFI_1830/2026 official number

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Parties

claimantToolGen, Inc.Follow this party
defendantVertex Pharmaceuticals IncorporatedFollow this party
defendantLonza Netherlands B.V.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: Infringement Action
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La production de pièces communiquées dans une procédure anglaise sous l'engagement CPR 31.22 est refusée faute d'autorisation du juge anglais. La demande de rejet au titre de la règle 361 est rejetée.
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 4 397 760 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

Microsoft v Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing (CoA, 15 October 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 4 397 760`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified)	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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