The Grand Chamber of the Court of Justice of the European Union ruled on 25 February 2025 in BSH v Electrolux (Case C-339/22, BSH Hausgeräte) that a court of the EU Member State where a defendant is domiciled can hear a claim for infringement of patents granted in other countries, even where the defendant argues as its defence that those patents are invalid. The case file on the Curia website records the reference from the Svea Court of Appeal in Stockholm.
Corporate INTL Newsroom · Intellectual Property
BSH v Electrolux: CJEU Opens the Door to Cross-Border Patent Infringement Claims
By The Corporate INTL Newsroom · 26 February 2025
The dispute
BSH holds a European patent for an invention in the field of vacuum cleaners, validated in Sweden, several other Member States, the United Kingdom and Türkiye. In February 2020 it sued Electrolux in Sweden for infringement of all national parts of the patent. Electrolux argued that the non-Swedish parts were invalid, so the Swedish courts had no jurisdiction over their infringement, and the Swedish Patent and Market Court declined jurisdiction over everything except the Swedish patent. On appeal, the referring court asked how Article 24(4) of the Brussels I bis Regulation, which gives the courts of the granting Member State exclusive jurisdiction over validity, interacts with the general rule in Article 4(1) that defendants are sued in their home courts.
What the Court decided
In its judgment, the Court confirmed that validity remains reserved to the courts of the Member State that granted the patent, whether validity is raised by action or as a defence. A home-state court hearing an infringement claim over another Member State's patent cannot rule, even indirectly, on that patent's validity and must decline jurisdiction on that issue. But because the exclusive rule covers only disputes concerned with registration or validity, the home-state court keeps jurisdiction over the infringement action itself.
Patents from third states are treated differently. Article 24(4) applies only to the courts of Member States, so it gives no exclusive jurisdiction to the courts of a country such as Türkiye or the United Kingdom. A Member State court seised on the basis of the defendant's domicile may therefore rule on the validity of a third-state patent raised as a defence, because its decision has effect only between the parties and does not change the patent or the national register in that state.
What it means for patent owners
After BSH v Electrolux, rights holders can bring a single infringement action in the defendant's home courts covering several European national designations, rather than suing country by country, while validity attacks on EU designations must still be pursued in the granting states. For European patents that also cover the UK or other non-EU states, the EU court can assess validity inter partes.
Sources
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