*** v OrthoApnea (CFI, 17 September 2024)

Date	17 September 2024
Court	CFI
Division	Brussels (BE) Local Division
Type of action	Infringement Action
Registry reference	ACT_581538/2023 · ORD_598476/2023
Parties	*** v. OrthoApnea S.L., Vivisol B BV

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 a procedural order of 17 September 2024 (UPC_CFI_376/2023, ACT_581538/2023), made under Rule 105.5 after the interim conference of 6 September 2024, the judge-rapporteur of the Brussels Local Division (S. Granata) set at EUR 250,000 the value of the action brought by an individual whose name is redacted against OrthoApnea S.L. and VIVISOL B BV for infringement of EP 2 331 036, and gave directions for the oral hearing. The order clarifies how the value of the dispute is set.

Question

How should the value of the dispute be set where neither party provides figures, and is the adequacy of that value in relation to the ceiling on recoverable costs a relevant factor?

Decision

The claimant had sought an interim payment of EUR 1, raised to EUR 50,000 in its reply, and accepted a value of EUR 250,000 at the conference. The defendants sought EUR 500,000 in view of the costs already incurred. As neither side put forward concrete facts, the value was set at EUR 250,000, the lowest threshold under the Administrative Committee decisions applied through Rules 370.6 and 152.3, whether the value is sufficient in relation to recoverable costs is irrelevant (section 4). The offer of evidence from the defendants’ European patent attorney had no object, since he is one of their representatives. Another person must be available by video to answer the panel’s questions (section 2). The consequences of the allegedly late filing of the main action under Rule 198.1 will be argued at the hearing (section 3).

Key points for practice

Practical point: a party claiming a value above the minimum threshold must support it with concrete facts, costs already incurred are not enough.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 102, 104, 105, 115, 152.3, 198.1, 333 and 370.6

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

*** v OrthoApnea S.L (CFI, 2025-01-17), 17 January 2025

Going further

Lexicon: Patent infringement action.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: Pleading the Long Arm: What a UPC Statement of Claim Must Carry Beyond Jurisdiction (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

defendantOrthoApnea S.L10 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendantVivisol B BV7 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: Infringement Action
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): Faute d'éléments concrets, la valeur du litige est fixée à 250 000 euros, seuil minimal applicable, l'adéquation au plafond des frais recouvrables n'étant pas un critère. L'offre de preuve par le représentant des défenderesses est sans objet.
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 2 331 036 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

*** v OrthoApnea (CFI, 17 January 2025) 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 2 331 036` Device for treating night time breathing problems recorded proprietor: Personne physique (déposant individuel)	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 8 other decision(s): OrthoApnea v * (CFI, 25 July 2025) · Appellant* v ORTHOAPNEA (CoA, 3 July 2025) · OrthoApnea v * (CFI, 2 May 2025) · OrthoApnea v * (CoA, 21 November 2024) · OrthoApnea v * (CoA, 26 July 2024) · OrthoApnea (CFI, 19 July 2024) · OrthoApnea (CFI, 8 July 2024) · * v OrthoApnea (CFI, 21 September 2023)	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet · 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.

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.