The EU Court of Justice rules that payment of royalties under a licence agreement where the patent was held invalid may be compatible with Article 101 TFEU (Genentech / Hoechst)

On 7 July 2016, the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “ECJ”) issued its judgment on a request for a preliminary ruling from the Paris Court of Appeal, which had enquired whether Article 101 TFEU precludes a licensee from paying royalties pursuant to a licensing agreement when the patent which is the subject of that licensing agreement has been held invalid (Case C-567/14, Genentech v Hoechst). The case concerns a long-standing patent dispute relating to a licence agreement signed in 1992 between Behringwerke, the licensor (of which Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland, a subsidiary of Hoechst, is a successor), and Genentech (a