A recent decision by the UPC Court of Appeal has resulted in Agfa losing a significant portion of its patent for a leather decoration technique. The court ruled that Gucci did not infringe the patent and revoked large parts of Agfa’s EP 3 388 490 patent in several European countries, including Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden.
Patent Revocation in Multiple Territories
The appeal panel, led by court president Klaus Grabinski, overturned parts of a previous ruling by the Hamburg local division.
A 2023 lawsuit by Agfa against nine Gucci subsidiaries over alleged patent violations in the Pikarar Collection was rejected by the Hamburg court in April 2025. After both sides challenged the ruling, the UPC Court of Appeal issued its final judgment on October 27, 2026.
Clarification on Public Prior Use Standards
A key aspect of the appeal concerned the standard for public prior use. The Court of Appeal clarified that a manufacturing method used for a publicly available product is considered public knowledge under Article 54(2) EPC if a skilled person can determine the method without excessive effort by analyzing the product’s composition. The judges rejected Agfa’s argument that an additional requirement should apply, specifically that the skilled person would need a particular reason to analyze the product. Furthermore, the court held that the reproducibility of features not part of the claimed invention is not necessary.
Based on these reports, the judges concluded that a skilled person could detect the use of UV curable inkjet inks and pigmented inks, resulting in the finding that independent claims 1, 10, 14, and 15, along with several dependent claims, lacked novelty.
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Legal Representation and In-House Counsel
Agfa relied on in-house counsel Hans Louis Strijckers for the case. The law firm Vossius Brinkhof UPC Litigators led the representation, with Daan de Lange heading the team. The group included associates Isabelle Kleinveld and Leonie Dißmann-Fuchs, along with counsel Alexander de Leeuw.
Partial Survival of the Patent
Not every claim was invalidated—the court preserved claim 5 alongside claim 1, along with claim 9 (related to heat-pressing printed leather) and dependent claims 6, 7, and 8 where they relied on claim 5. The judges ruled that neither Japanese prior art nor a US patent cited by Gucci could invalidate these specific claims.
Significantly, the Court of Appeal disagreed with the Hamburg division’s interpretation of the term “achromatic colour.” The appeal court held that an achromatic colour, as defined in the patent, is not limited to a theoretically perfect achromatic colour. The judges noted that in the context of luxury leather goods, warmer whites are commonly used. The court confirmed that Agfa had not demonstrated that the inks used in the attacked Gucci products contained polyfunctional monomers or oligomers within the range of claim 5. The judges also rejected Agfa’s reference to the flexibility of the leather and its reliance on a reversal of the burden of proof under Article 55 UPCA.
The court ordered Agfa to cover all legal costs for both the original lawsuit and the appeal, totaling €2.5 million—up from the Hamburg division’s initial 60% cost allocation to Gucci. This decision partially revoked Agfa’s patent across Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, and Sweden, resolving the dispute over the leather-printing method.
