Sinocare's Blood Glucose Monitoring Products Face Comprehensive Ban

In April 2026, the Court of Appeal of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) rendered a final ruling in the patent infringement case brought by Abbott against Sinocare concerning continuous glucose monitoring systems, overturning the first-instance decision of the Hague Local Division that had previously rejected the preliminary injunction request for patent EP3988471, and fully granting Abbott's application for a preliminary injunction. Consequently, Sinocare has lost all appeals in the preliminary injunction proceedings involving two core patents, and its relevant CGM products are now comprehensively prohibited from being manufactured, sold, imported, or used in the 17 member states under UPC jurisdiction.

Abbott Laboratories is a US-based healthcare giant with a history of over 130 years, headquartered in Illinois. Its business encompasses four major sectors: medical devices, diagnostics, nutrition, and established pharmaceuticals. Abbott holds approximately 49% of the global continuous glucose monitoring (CGM) market, firmly ranking first in the industry.

Sinocare Inc. was founded in 2002 and is headquartered in Changsha, Hunan Province. It was listed on the Shenzhen Stock Exchange's ChiNext board in 2012. Sinocare holds more than 50% of China's retail blood glucose meter market, ranking first in the country, and is the world's fourth-largest blood glucose meter company, with its business covering 187 countries and regions and serving over 25 million users.

In April 2025, Sinocare's CGM products entered the European market, with Menarini as the exclusive distributor. In June 2025, Abbott filed two applications for preliminary injunctions with the UPC Hague Local Division, alleging infringement of patent EP633 (hardware) and patent EP471 (software interface). In October 2025, the first-instance ruling resulted in "one win and one loss": the injunction for EP633 was granted, while the injunction for EP471 was dismissed, with Abbott ordered to bear €400,000 in costs.

Abbott promptly appealed the first-instance decision dismissing the injunction for patent EP471. On March 26, 2026, the UPC Court of Appeal held a hearing on the case.

On April 17, 2026, the UPC Court of Appeal issued its second-instance judgment, fully adopting Abbott's arguments, overturning the first-instance decision, and granting the preliminary injunction for patent EP471. The Court of Appeal held that the first-instance court had interpreted the patent claims too narrowly. Based on a broader claim construction, the court found that the accused products were "more likely than not" to infringe. With respect to the finding of urgency, the court considered that before the publication of the user guide and the actual market launch of the products in Europe, Abbott did not have sufficient information to identify infringement. The written decision of the EPO Opposition Division was issued on April 24, 2025, which coincided with the publication of the user guide and the product launch, and thus it was reasonable to take that date as the starting point for calculating the time limit for filing the preliminary injunction application.

Thus, Sinocare has lost all appeals in the preliminary injunction proceedings concerning the two patents. However, according to public reports, Sinocare has filed a request for invalidation with the European Patent Office (EPO) against the relevant Abbott patents, seeking to fundamentally negate the validity of the patents. China Intellectual Property Lawyer Network will continue to follow subsequent developments.