Competenţa instanţei sesizate cu acţiunea în contrafacerea unor brevete, în ipoteza în care pârâtul invocă, în apărare, nulitatea unor brevete înregistrate în state diferite de cel al instanţei sesizate
The jurisdiction of the court seised with an action forpatent infringement where the defendant raises, by way of defence, the invalidity of patents registered in states other than that of the seised court

Summary/Abstract: In the present study, we aim to examine the judgment of the Court of Justice of the European Union in Case C 339/22, BSH Hausgeräte GmbH v. Elektrolux AB, a judgment of great importance in the field of European jurisdiction law in general, and of intellectual property law in particular. The issue addressed concerns the interdependence between jurisdiction to adjudicate – in the context of international civil litigation, that is, involving at least one foreign element – an action for patent infringement (or for infringement of a bundle of patents registered in different States, whether Member States of the European Union or third States) and the defence raised by the defendant in the infringement action, by which the defendant pleads, by way of defence, the invalidity of the patent or patents on which the claimant’s action is based. Since we have previously examined this issue in a book devoted to jurisdiction under the Brussels I bis Regulation, in Section I we shall recall the conclusions reached on that occasion, as of 2017, including by reference to the earlier case law of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). Section II will then be devoted to an analysis of the conclusions reached by the Court of Justice in BSH Hausgeräte GmbH v. Elektrolux AB, a judgment that brings to an end the controversies and legal uncertainty in this field. Section III examines the manner in which the CJEU’s judgment has been received, within a relatively short period of time, in European legal scholarship and judicial practice, while Section IV is devoted to a brief assessment and the formulation of concluding remarks.

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