Today, August 30, 2024, UMDIS received a demand from Mr. Spyra’s lawyer requesting the publication of Mr. Spyra’s company press release regarding the dispute with Amycel.
In the lawyer’s demand, it is claimed that the article title “Court confirms that the Cayene strain is a copy of Heirloom” could mislead readers. The lawyers argue that such a title might be interpreted by readers as a statement that Spyra has infringed on Amycel’s patent rights.

Below is the accompanying letter from Mr. Spyra’s lawyers.

Acting for and on behalf of Mr. Szymon Spyra, in relation to the article titled “Court confirms that the Cayene strain is a copy of Heirloom” published on August 29, 2024, the wording of the title and content of the article suggest that the order issued in the case between Amycel and Szymon Spyra by the Unified Patent Court, division in The Hague, on July 31, 2024, has determined that Szymon Spyra committed a patent infringement. Since such wording of the article’s title and content may mislead readers regarding the current state of the case, we request to publish a statement concerning the ongoing dispute between him and Amycel.
Please inform us about the date of publishing of press rectification.
Statement attached to this email.
Sebastian Kwiecień
Radca Prawny
MK Attorneys at Law Kancelaria Prawna
[contacts]

You can view the article on our website here, and the court decision here.

UMDIS is an independent platform, and we see no reason to deny Mr. Spyra the opportunity to publish the press release we received.

However, we would like to point out that the headline of the original article “Court confirms that the Cayene strain is a copy of Heirloom” does not claim that Mr. Spyra infringed on Amycel’s patent rights. It only states the fact that, in the court’s opinion, the Cayene and Heirloom strains are identical. Below is a quote from the court’s decision:

44. The results presented in the NakTuinbouw and reports (see paragraph 19 above at 1) and 2)), show a similarity between Cayene and BR06 and Cayene and Heirloom samples, that falls within the threshold established for identical samples, such as between two Heirloom or two BR06 samples. The same results were obtained by two different sequencing methods(AFLP and WGS) and by two different computational approaches. In view of this, the court is sufficiently certain that based on the evidence filed by the Applicant Cayene and the Heirloom/BR06 can be considered so genetically similar that this is indistinguishable from genetical identity within the applicable limits of experimental error.

The court’s decision also includes the following points:

40. The court is convinced with a sufficient degree of certainty (R. 211.2 RoP) that the Applicant’s right is infringed by the offer and distribution of the contested embodiments within the Contracting Member State of The Netherlands (Art. 25(a) UPCA).

47. Taking this into account, all results show that Cayene and BR06 are, when subjected to sequencing, found to have genetic identity at least to the same degree as would be expected for biological replicates of the same strain. Hence, the court considers it on the balance of probabilities to be more likely than not that (claim 1 of) the patent is infringed with the sale or offering Cayene spawn. In view of the parties’ position on claim interpretation, the court will not consider the morphological data, even if the court is sufficiently convinced by the report that Cayene has the same characteristics as described in the patent as important and attributed there to strain BR06.

UMDIS confirms that based on our reading of the court’s decision, it has not yet been definitively determined whether Mr. Spyra is infringing on Amycel’s patent rights. However, the court considers that there is a sufficient likelihood of infringement, as indicated by the phrase “Hence, the court considers it on the balance of probabilities to be more likely than not that (claim 1 of) the patent is infringed with the sale or offering Cayene spawn.” in paragraph 47 of the court decision.

The final decision on this dispute seems to be still pending. This judgment, regarding provisional measures, is provisional and applies only for the duration of the ongoing dispute between the parties regarding the infringement of the patent rights of the brown mushroom strain Agaricus bisporus BR06.