JUVE Comment

For years, this international law firm has maintained an integrated European patent team with extensive experience in Europe-wide patent infringement proceedings. It is now putting this to good use at the UPC, where long-standing regular clients such as Novartis (against Celltrion) and Lenovo (against AsusTek) have followed. Freshfields is still one of the top representatives at the new court for a multitude of clients and is one of the few law firms that is equally well represented at the UPC in both pharmaceutical and mobile communications proceedings. So far the Düsseldorf team has shown the greatest presence, especially in proceedings in which Freshfields is conducting parallel cases before national German courts. Nevertheless, clients are making use of the well-established cooperation between the various national teams they are already familiar with from previous pan-European proceedings. Alexion, for example, retained a German-Dutch-British team for its PI applications against Amgen and Samsung Bioepis, and Xiaomi also relies on the cross-border expertise of partners from the Düsseldorf and Amsterdam offices. In addition, the firm represented Netgear at a very early stage in a UPC lawsuit brought by Huawei regarding wifi standards, in which judges addressed fundamental FRAND aspects of UPC case law.

The firm attracted particular attention with the claim initiated by London partner Christopher Stothers regarding third-party access of documents. One competitor praised him for his “excellent work regarding transparency”, while another said he and his team have detailed knowledge “across the legal issues in the nascent court”. However, the lawyers do not yet achieve the case numbers and high visibility of market leaders such as Bird & Bird or Taylor Wessing.

Strengths

UPC litigation regarding pharmaceuticals (for originators) and telecoms (for implementers).

Recommended individuals

Stephan Dorn (“impressive knowledge of strategic options under the UPCA”, “deep knowledge of procedural issues, comes up with creative solutions”, competitors), Christopher Stothers (“I am hugely impressed by his knowedge and responsiveness”, competitor)

Team

22 lawyers

Clients

Novartis/Regeneron against Celltrion over asthma drug Xolair/omalizumab; Alexion against Amgen and Samsung Bioepis over orphan drug Bekemv/eculizumab; Lenovo/Motorola against AususTek and Innovative Sonic Corporation over mobile phone SEPs; Motorola against Headwater Research over network capacity management; Netgear against Huawei over wifi technology; Xiaomi against Panasonic over mobile communication SEPs (stayed in 2024); Hewlett Packard against Dolby over video coding technology; SharkNinja against Dyson over vacuum cleaners; Kodak against FujiFilm over printing plate precursors.