Aylo Premium Ltd & Anor v Aylo Premium Ltd & Ors
[2024] EWHC 1310 (Pat)
Texas Instruments Incorporated v Network System Technologies LLC
29 April 2024
[2024] EWHC 1066 (Pat)
High Court
Two companies are fighting over a patent. One wants a fast UK trial to avoid problems in another court case in Europe. The judge said the fast trial will happen unless the second company fixes the terms of an agreement to make sure the first company's products are protected.
Key Facts
- •Texas Instruments Incorporated (TI) applied for an expedited trial in a patent revocation case against Network System Technologies LLC (NST).
- •The case involves three patents, one expiring in April 2026, and two already expired.
- •Parallel proceedings are ongoing in the Munich Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
- •NST offered an undertaking to withdraw its long-arm claim for damages under the UK designations of the patents.
- •Dispute arose over the terms of an undertaking regarding the assertion of UK patents.
- •TI proposed a September trial for the still-valid patent ('683 patent), with the others to be tried later.
- •The court considered the practicality and burden of an expedited trial in September.
Legal Principles
Expedition will only be ordered on the basis of real, objectively viewed urgency.
WL Gore & Associates GMBH v Geox SpA [2008] EWCA Civ 622 and Petter v EMC Europe Ltd [2015] EWCA Civ 480
The availability of an English judgment in advance of related proceedings in the courts of the Continent is considered.
Takeda UK Ltd v F Hoffman-La Roche AG [2018] EWHC 2155 and Nicoventures Trading Ltd v Philip Morris Products SA [2020] EWHC 1594 (Pat)
Outcomes
The court conditionally ordered an expedited trial for September unless NST provides improved undertakings.
The court found that TI's primary justification for expedition, achieving early commercial certainty in the UK, depended on the adequacy of NST's undertakings. A significant gap in those undertakings existed, potentially leaving TI's chips vulnerable to litigation. If NST improves the undertakings to remove this ambiguity, the need for expedition diminishes significantly.