EPO Board Revokes Edwards Heart Valve Patent at the Centre of Its UPC Win Against Meril
Photo: Nadezhda Moryak / Pexels
The long-running heart valve fight between Edwards Lifesciences and Meril has taken a turn at the European Patent Office. According to JUVE Patent, an EPO Board of Appeal revoked Edwards' European patent EP 4 151 181 at the end of an oral hearing on 23 October 2026.
That patent matters well beyond the EPO. It is the right on which Edwards won an injunction at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) against Meril's transcatheter valves.
What the UPC had decided
In October 2025, the UPC's Paris central division upheld EP 4 151 181 in amended form and granted Edwards an injunction covering Meril's Octacor and Octapro valves. Valves larger than 30mm (the XL sizes) were left outside the order, as JUVE reports. Meril appealed, and the UPC Court of Appeal has listed the cases (UPC_CoA_932/2025 and UPC_CoA_933/2025) for a hearing on 13 May 2027.
What changes now
A revocation by an EPO Board of Appeal is final within the EPO system and takes effect for the patent as granted across its designated states. JUVE's assessment is that the legal basis for the UPC injunction falls away. How the UPC Court of Appeal formally deals with its pending appeals, and what happens to the existing injunction in practice, will depend on further steps by the parties and the court.
The Board's written decision was not yet available in the European Patent Register when this article was prepared. According to Meril's representatives, Marks & Clerk, they argued before the Board that both the patent as granted and the claims upheld at first instance lacked inventive step, and Edwards then withdrew its remaining auxiliary requests. The Board's own reasoning will only be known once the written decision is published. Marks & Clerk also say the Board relied on prior art that the UPC had considered and dismissed.
Two systems, one patent
The case is a clear example of a feature of the European system that patent owners sometimes underestimate. A European patent can be attacked in opposition at the EPO and in revocation actions or counterclaims at the UPC at the same time. The two bodies are independent, they can reach different results, and the EPO's revocation decision removes the patent regardless of what the UPC decided earlier.
For Edwards, the dispute with Meril does not end here, because the companies are also in dispute over other patents. But this decision removes one of the patents behind Edwards' most visible UPC success so far.
Why it matters
For medical device companies relying on a UPC injunction, the result is a reminder to track parallel EPO opposition and appeal proceedings closely. A win at the UPC on validity is only as stable as the patent's position at the EPO, and the timing of a Board of Appeal hearing can change the commercial picture before the UPC appeal is even heard.
Sources
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