Appeals court persuades Grünenthal to drop unfair competition law injunctions (obtained in parallel to patent PIs) against Abdi Farma

Context: This is just a brief update to the September 16, 2025 ip fray article (Doctrine of equivalents removes painkiller from German market: Grünenthal wins preliminary injunction on appeal). Grünenthal had won two different types of preliminary injunctions (PIs). In the Dusseldorf Regional Court, it was denied PIs over patent infringement, but the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court reversed the decision and enjoined Abdi Farma based on the Doctrine of Equivalents (DOE). What Grünenthal had, however, won in the lower court were a couple of injunctions on unfair competition law (UCL) grounds.

What’s new: Today the 20th Civil Senate of the Dusseldorf Higher Regional Court heard Abdi Farma’s appeal of the UCL injunctions. As the appeals court indicated that it agreed with Abdi Farma, Grünenthal withdrew the PI motions.

Direct impact: This terminates the PI track on UCL grounds (under Germany’s general UCL as well as a lex specialis on advertising of healthcare products), and Grünenthal’s decision to withdraw suggests that no main proceedings over the same question will follow. This has no bearing on the related patent litigation (see below).

Wider ramifications:

• The Dusseldorf Regional Court will hold a patent infringement hearing (in the main proceedings) on July 14, 2026. The patent-in-suit expired even before last year’s PIs, and the supplementary protection certificate (SPC) has meanwhile expired, too (on November 5, 2025). At this point it is about costs and damages, not injunctive relief.
• Even without a precedential decision, this development is of transcendental importance for the industry as other original innovators in the pharmaceutical industry might also contemplate (and have recently contemplated) a strategy of pursuing relief based on non-patent grounds, be it in the regulatory arena or through lawsuits on UCL grounds. The appeals court today made clear that the decisions of regulatory authorities to authorize the sale of products must be accepted in principle. Any judicial review is limited in scope.