The biotech company Curevac has suffered a setback in the patent dispute with its rival Biontech. On Tuesday, the Federal Patent Court declared a Europe-wide basic patent for mRNA vaccines in Germany claimed by Curevac to be invalid. “The patent is declared invalid with effect for the territory of the Federal Republic of Germany,” said presiding judge Walter Schramm when the verdict was announced in Munich. Curevac shares then collapsed by more than 40 percent on the stock market. The company announced that it would appeal the decision to the Federal Court of Justice.
The start-up Biontech became known for its Covid-19 vaccine, which the Mainz company and the pharmaceutical company Pfizer sold billions of times during the corona pandemic. The Tübingen competitor Curevac accuses Biontech of violating its own patents and filed a lawsuit with the Düsseldorf regional court last year. Biontech rejected the allegations and had it checked whether these intellectual property rights were even valid. The Düsseldorf regional court therefore interrupted the proceedings there.
The Munich trial was now about a lawsuit brought by Biontech against Curevac, in which Biontech demanded that Curevac’s patent on vaccines be declared invalid. Accordingly, the European Patent Office wrongly granted the property right in 2010 because the system for genetic vaccination was not based on an inventive step. The Federal Patent Court now followed this argument: “We are of the preliminary opinion that there is likely to be a lack of inventive step,” Judge Schramm said at the hearing. As usual, the court does not want to provide the reasons for the judgment until later.
“We remain convinced that, as pioneers of mRNA technology and through our ongoing innovation in this field, we have made a significant contribution to safe and effective Covid-19 vaccines,” said Curevac CEO Alexander Zehnder after the verdict . The company also pointed out that proceedings regarding seven remaining intellectual property rights were continuing and were not affected by the ruling. In addition to Curevac, US rival Moderna is also suing, which also sees its patents infringed by the Covid-19 vaccine from Biontech and Pfizer. Biontech also rejected these allegations.