Evidentiary Gaps and Single-Appliance Claims in UPC Preliminary Injunctions
The Düsseldorf Local Division dismissed a preliminary injunction request after the applicant relied on marketing materials showing sequential treatment phases to prove infringement of a single-appliance method claim.
Piecing together an application for provisional measures from a competitor's promotional webinars and website screenshots is a familiar exercise when physical product samples are scarce. But when the asserted patent claims a method of designing a device that applies simultaneous physical forces, relying on marketing materials that describe sequential treatment phases can fatally undermine the infringement case.
The single-appliance construction
In UPC_CFI_1747/2025, the Düsseldorf Local Division dismissed an application for provisional measures (Rule 209 RoP) filed by Align Technology against Angelalign. The patent in suit, EP 4 295 806 B1, relates to a method of designing clear aligners for orthodontic therapy.
The infringement dispute hinged on the precise mechanical requirements of claim 1. Specifically, features 1.5.1 through 1.5.3 require the shape profile of the appliance to be configured such that the tooth receiving cavities generate a "first counter moment" to a first group of teeth and a "second counter moment" to a second group of teeth, with the first counter moment opposite the second counter moment.
The panel construed the claim strictly based on the wording and the specification. Because the method refers to the design of an appliance that provides specific activation forces, the panel concluded that all features must be realised in one single appliance (reasons 57). The opposing counter moments cannot be spread across different aligners in a treatment sequence; they must be generated simultaneously by the tooth receiving cavities of an individual polymeric shell.
Marketing materials and temporal gaps
To prove infringement by the defendants' "A7 Premolar Extraction Solution", the applicant relied heavily on the defendants' own product brochures and webinars. The applicant mapped the "first counter moment" to a marketed advantage called "bodily canine distalization" and the "second counter moment" to "anchorage preparation of posterior teeth".
The panel, however, identified a critical temporal disconnect in this evidence. The promotional material explicitly stated that the anchorage preparation of the posterior teeth takes place at the beginning of the treatment, whereas the retraction of the anterior teeth occurs subsequently (reasons 85). Because these steps happen sequentially, the panel found that the applicant had not demonstrated that both counter moments were applied by the same aligner.
The burden of specific substantiation
The decision rigorously enforces the evidentiary standard for preliminary injunctions. The panel reiterated that the burden of presentation and proof for facts allegedly establishing the infringement lies entirely with the applicant (reasons 78). It is not the defendant's initial responsibility to prove non-infringement.
The panel noted that clear aligner therapy is inherently incremental, involving many small stages performed by a series of differently shaped aligners. Against this technical background, the applicant's reliance on general treatment phases was insufficient. The applicant's witness statement merely asserted that the teeth "have been subject to" counter moments, without proving that a single aligner's shape profile generated both forces simultaneously. The panel dismissed these arguments as being "of a too general character" and based on unsupported assumptions about the product's functioning (reasons 89–91).
Practical implications
This order demonstrates the risks of relying solely on high-level marketing materials to prove infringement of mechanically specific claims in preliminary injunction proceedings. When a claim construction demands that multiple technical effects, such as a first and second counter moment, be realised in a single physical embodiment, the evidence must map to that specific embodiment.
If a competitor's promotional brochure describes technical advantages that are achieved sequentially over a multi-stage treatment, it will likely fail to satisfy the burden of proof for a single-appliance claim. Applicants seeking provisional measures must provide specific substantiation. Where marketing materials highlight sequential benefits, the applicant must bridge the evidentiary gap, perhaps through reverse-engineered product analysis or detailed expert testimony, to prove that the required features are nevertheless present simultaneously in the accused device.