Court of Appeal rules Suinno’s representative not independent

The position of Suinno's representative as the company's managing director and shareholder precludes him from representing Suinno in an application for confidentiality. This was the ruling by the UPC's Court of Appeal yesterday. The Solomonic judgement may be decisive in future UPC cases in which in-house counsel represent their own companies.

On 29 January, the UPC Court of Appeal heard an appeal brought by Finnish company Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy in its dispute with Microsoft (case ID: UPC_CFI_164/2024). The case concerns an accusation of infringment of Suinno’s EP 2 671 173. The patent protects a method for browsing by walking. But a significant part of the case so far has involved the role and limits of UPC representatives working in-house.

The situation becomes more complicated when UPC representatives working in-house are also the inventors of the patent-in-dispute. This raises fundamental questions about the independence of such in-house representatives.

Inventor, MD and counsel

In the course of the proceedings, Suinno also filed an application requesting that certain documents be kept confidential from both the public and Microsoft.

Helsinki-based patent attorney Mikko Väänänen is both the inventor of the patent-in-suit and the main representative for Suinno in the UPC case. According to the judgments, he is also the company’s managing director and main shareholder.

Nadine Westermeyer from Bardehle Pagenberg, representing Microsoft, argued that Väänänen could not be considered independent within the meaning of 2.4.1 of the Code of Conduct for UPC Representatives because he is financially dependent. Initially, this argument was not accepted by the Paris central division in June 2024. The judge granted Suinno’s application and ordered access to documents be restricted to Microsoft representatives (case ID: RoP262A No. App_19084/2024).