Dismissal of the appeal against the interim decision of the Federal Patent Court on the admissibility of the nullity action

Facts

On June 14, 2023, B. SA and C. SA (plaintiffs, respondents to the appeal) filed a lawsuit with the Federal Patent Court against A. GmbH (defendant, appellant). They sought a declaration that the Swiss-Liechtenstein part of European Patents EP www, EP xxx, EP yyy and EP zzz is null and void.

The defendant filed a limited statement of defense on April 29, 2024 and requested that the lawsuit filed on June 14, 2023 not be admitted, insofar as it is not to be dismissed as irrelevant. She also made procedural motions to limit the proceedings to the question of the admissibility of the nullity action and a possible stay of the proceedings.

By order of May 1, 2024, the President of the Federal Patent Court as the instructing judge dismissed the defendant's legal claims and procedural motions and extended the deadline for filing the statement of defense.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court examines ex officio whether the defendant's appeal against this order is admissible. It concludes that this is an interim decision within the meaning of Art. 93 BGG.

The defendant relies on Art. 93 para. 1 lit. b BGG and claims that a final decision of the Federal Supreme Court could save a significant amount of time and costs for an extensive evidentiary procedure. However, the Federal Supreme Court denies that the defendant has sufficiently demonstrated this requirement. In particular,…