Cour de cassation 1ère Chambre civile; 2022-06-29; 1re Civ., 29 juin 2022, pourvoi n° 21-11.085
Decision by national courts in the field of European Union law — ECLI:FR:CCASS:2022:C100540
Date: 2022-06-29
Subject matter: Judicial cooperation in civil matters
Origin: France

82022FR0629(51)_ENG_SUMJURE
JURE summary
JURE summary
In this case, the Cour de Cassation (hereinafter ‘the Supreme Court’) examined if the cour d’appel de Paris (hereinafter ‘the Cour of Appeal’) made a correct application of the law when it held that the French courts had no jurisdiction to examine acts of patent infringement allegedly committed outside French territory.
The French company Hutchinson (hereinafter ‘the plaintiff’) sued before the French courts the English Company Tyron Runflat (hereinafter ‘the English defendant’), the South-African company Global Wheel (hereinafter ‘the South-African defendant’) and the French companies Dal and L.A. VI (hereinafter (‘the French defendants’). The plaintiff alleged that a European patent had been infringed in France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
The Court of Appeal held that the French courts had jurisdiction to examine the acts of patent infringement allegedly committed by the French defendants in Germany and the United Kingdom, but did not have jurisdiction to examine the acts allegedly committed by the English defendant outside French territory.
This dismissal for lack of jurisdiction was grounded on Article 8(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast) (1), which provides that ‘[a] person domiciled in a Member State may also be sued: (1) where he is one of a number of defendants, in the courts for the place where any one of them is domiciled, provided the claims are so closely connected that it is expedient to hear and determine them together to avoid the risk of irreconcilable judgments resulting from separate proceedings’.
The Court of Appeal also relied on the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, which held in Case C-616/10 that ‘in order for judgments to be regarded as at risk of being irreconcilable […], it is not sufficient that there be a divergence in the outcome of the dispute, but that divergence must also arise in the same situation of fact and law ‘ (2).
The Court of Appeal considered that the products incriminated in and outside France were not the same, and the alleged acts of infringements on the British and German parts of the patent on the one hand, and on the French parts of it on the other hand, did not pertain to the same situation of law, so that there was not a same situation of fact and law, and the judgments that would deal with the various actions might be divergent, but would not be irreconcilable.
The plaintiff appealed to the Supreme Court. It claimed that the Court of Appeal made a wrong application of Article 8(1) of the Brussels I Regulation (recast).
Noting that the plaintiff accused the English and French defendants of infringements relating to the same product and the same national parts of its patent, the Supreme Court set aside the judgment of the Court of Appeal, but only insomuch as it held that the French courts had no jurisdiction to examine the acts of infringements allegedly committed by the English defendant outside French territory.
(1) Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters (recast).
(2) Judgment of the Court of Justice of 12 July 2012, Solvay SA v Honeywell Fluorine Products Europe BV and Others, C-616/10, ECLI:EU:C:2012:445, paragraph 24.