PFIZER INC · News & developments
European Patent Office Revokes Key Moderna Patent, Erasing Pfizer's Court Liabilities in London and Düsseldorf
During the two-day oral hearing, Board of Appeal 3.3.08 revoked EP 3 590 949, which had previously been upheld at first instance. The board overturned an earlier first-instance decision, revoking the patent on the grounds that the claimed subject matter impermissibly exceeded the disclosure of the original application. The ruling directly nullifies infringement rulings that Moderna had previously won against BioNTech and Pfizer in national courts in London and Düsseldorf.
Why this matters
Moderna's European patent offensive had real teeth after national court victories in Germany and the UK set Pfizer and BioNTech up for substantive financial damage awards over Comirnaty. Because the EPO's appellate board revoked EP 949 outright under strict added-matter rules, the underlying legal claim supporting those national verdicts disappears. The immediate operational win is that Pfizer avoids cash payouts and damages levies on historic European vaccine revenue. However, Moderna's intellectual property pressure has not evaporated entirely: divisional offshoots remain in play, with EP 4 108 671 under opposition and EP 4 435 100 still undergoing examination.