mRNA vaccine: Infringement proceedings postponed due to invalidation of a CureVac patent

As expected, the Düsseldorf Regional Court postponed the infringement proceedings filed by CureVac SE against BioNTech SE on 27 December 2023 and cancelled the hearing date scheduled for 28 December – see here.

The proceedings are about mRNA-based vaccines against Covid-19.

The reason for the stay of the infringement proceedings is the parallel nullity proceedings against patent EP 1 857 122 B1 on mRNA vaccines before the Federal Patent Court in Germany (“Bundespatentgericht”), from which CureVac had filed the suit. The patent was declared invalid in the nullity proceedings on 15 December 2023. We have already reported on this: First instance declares German CureVac patent on mRNA vaccine against Covid-19 invalid. There you can also find further details.

CureVac had already announced to appeal against the judgement of invalidity before the Federal Court of Justice (BGH, second instance).

A decision on whether to continue the infringement proceedings before the Düsseldorf Regional Court will now only be made once the BGH has reached a legally binding decision in the nullity proceedings. This is likely to take around a year. If the invalidity of the patent would be confirmed by the BGH, the infringement proceedings would become unfounded.

We will continue reporting on the progress of the two parallel proceedings.