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Court of Appeal, August 21, 2026, Order on Application for Suspensive Effect, UPC_CoA_135/2026
Violation of principle of party disposition constitutes “manifest error”: The Court of First Instance is strictly bound by the relief requested according to Art. 76(1) UPCA and cannot award more than is requested. In case a court awards more than is requested (e.g. change of “and”-warning into “or”-disclaimer) this constitutes a manifest error under Art.…
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Court of Appeal, August 27, 2026, Order to Produce Evidence, UPC_CoA_76/2026
R. 190 RoP does not permit fishing expeditions: The purpose of R. 190 RoP is to enable access to specified evidence that is not readily accessible to the party bearing the burden of proof. An order under R. 190 RoP requires reasonably available evidence supporting the plausibility of the claim and is subject to the…
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LD Hamburg, August 25, 2025, Order on Application for Provisional Measures, UPC_CFI_1535/2026
For the assessment of urgency it is relevant when the applicant was able to physically obtain and examine the potentially infringing product: Information obtained earlier is only relevant if such information (e.g. drawings) allow applicant to determine with sufficient certainty whether the potentially infringing product is infringing the patent in suit. The applicant of preliminary…
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LD Düsseldorf, August 21, 2026, Order on the Release of Information in Inspection and Preservation Proceedings, UPC_CFI_1696/2025
Scope of disclosure in the inspection and preservation proceedings (Art. 58 UPCA): A three-step test governs the scope of disclosure of a detailed description to an applicant in inspection and preservation proceedings (Art. 58 UPCA) – Continuing of earlier LD Düsseldorf decision (UPC_CFI_539/2024, November 19, 2025, headnotes 1–3 – Bekaert v. Siltronic). First, it must…
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LD Munich, June 11, 2026, Order of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_1321/2025
Deadline extensions RoP are assessed strictly: party consent does not bind the Court where the extension would jeopardise hearing preparation: The Claimant requested a two-week extension of the R. 29(a) RoP deadline. Despite the Defendants’ consent (subject to reciprocity), the Court rejected the request, finding it would jeopardise the proper preparation of the oral hearing.…
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Court of Appeal, June 10, 2026, Order of the Court of Appeal, UPC_CoA_61/2026
Market data from providers requiring confidentiality qualifies as confidential information under R. 262.2, R. 262A.1 RoP and Art. 58 UPCA, extending beyond trade secrets per Art. 39(2) TRIPS: The Court confirmed that R. 262 and R. 262A RoP protect not only trade secrets within the meaning of Art. 39(2) TRIPS Agreement but also “other confidential…
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LD Düsseldorf, June 10, 2026, Decision of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_758/2024, UPC_CFI_259/2025
Headnote: The claimant’s legitimate interest in the publication of a decision (Art. 80 UPCA) may, depending on the circumstances of the individual case, follow from the fact that the defendant has marketed the attacked embodiment by explicitly referencing to the key technology protected by the patent: Publication of the decision under Art. 80 UPCA (in…
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Paris Local Division, June 5, 2026, Procedural Order of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_684/2025
New arguments submitted late in the proceedings may be disregarded to uphold the front-loaded procedure (R. 9.2 RoP): The court has the discretion to declare inadmissible new non-infringement arguments and evidence that a defendant introduces for the first time in its Rejoinder. Defendants must present all grounds for non-infringement in their initial Statement of Defence…
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LD Mannheim, 24 February 2026, Order of Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_735/2024, UPC_CFI_224/2025
Functional claim construction; disregarding additional features: The patent is related to an optical device having a specific arrangement of a single input fiber for lighting. The accused embodiment comprises multiple input fibres, but only one of them is used for coupling input laser light; the other fibres are used for other functionalities that do not…
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Court of Appeal, 24 February 2026, Decision concerning public access to the register, UPC_CoA_9/2026, UPC_CoA_10/2026
Reasoned requests regarding access to documents (R. 262.1(b) RoP) shall be made to the relevant division + separate responsibility of Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal: This ensures that the decision will be taken by the judge-rapporteur, who is familiar with the case file. Headnotes: Reasoned requests to the Registry for written pleadings…
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LD Munich, 24 February 2026, Order of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_609/2025
Representation by attorney at law or patent attorney (Art. 48, 58 UPCA): A party can choose freely between being represented by an attorney at law, a patent attorney or a team of both. There is no obligation to consider the nature of the case. This is also reflected in the headnotes: 1) It follows from…
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LD Düsseldorf, October 31, 2025, order of the court of first instance, UPC_CFI_630/2025
Realization of technical effects and “inferior embodiments”: When an attacked embodiment realizes all structural features of a device claim and the claim does not require the realization of a particular technical effect, the claim is infringed regardless of whether the composition of the structural features in the attacked embodiment achieve a technical effect intended by…
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Court of Appeal, November 5, 2025, decision of the court of appeal, UPC_CoA_762/2024 and UPC_CoA_773/2024
Substantive content of application filed in non-EPO language: If an (international) patent application is filed in a non-EPO language, the filing of the translation of the application into the language of the proceedings will define the substantive content of the application with regards to the requirements of inadmissible amendments under Art. 123 (2) EPC. The…
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LD Düsseldorf, 9 July 2025, Decision of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_355/2023, UPC_CFI_186/2025
Representation Costs in Cost Proceedings: Proceedings for cost decisions under R. 150 et seq. RoP are summary proceedings. Awarding compensation for the additional costs of the cost proceedings is not envisaged in the Rules and it would give the parties an incentive to spend more resources in the summary proceedings than necessary, thus resulting in…
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Local Division Mannheim, July 9, 2025, Order of the President of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_292/2025
Language of the proceedings: If the language of the proceedings is not the language in which the patent was granted, Art. 49(5) UPCA allows to change the language of the proceedings. A change, however, requires that the President of the Court of First Instance consults all parties potentially affected thereby and the panel of the…
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LD Mannheim, 2 April 2025, Decision of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_365/2023
The UPC has no jurisdiction over a European Patent with regard to those national parts of UPCA member states which have already lapsed before 1 June 2023. The same applies to national parts of non-UPCA-member states: Without prejudice to Art. 83 UPCA, Art. 3 (c) UPCA vests upon the UPC jurisdiction over any pre-existing European…
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LD Mannheim, 2 April 2025, Decision of the Court of First Instance, UPC_CFI_359/2023
Strict Application Principle for Amending Patents in Defense Against Revocation: Art. 76 (1) UPCA contains a strict application principle. Accordingly, a patent proprietor, who wishes to defend its patent in a limited version, has to submit a clear and comprehensive Application to amend the patent. This includes situations where the proprietor wishes to rely on…
