Court of First Instance: Munich tops billing

A total of 585 cases have been filed before the UPC First Instance Courts, with 219 infringement actions and a combined 293 revocation actions (including both direct revocation actions and counterclaims for revocation brought during infringement proceedings by separate defendants).

The German courts remain the predominant jurisdiction for cases, with 71% of the total UPC First Instance case load (419). The Munich Local Division continues to stand above the rest with 36% of the total case load (207), although the Düsseldorf Local Division also appears to be popular with litigants, increasing its lead over the Mannheim Local Division and growing at a month-on-month rate of 13% so far in 2024.

The Central Divisions paint a different picture, however, with the Munich Central Division having the smallest case load (6), after the first cases were initiated in October before the Milan Central Division (9). However, the Paris Central Division continues to lead by a significant margin, with 49 cases. This is perhaps not surprising, given the Paris seat of the Central Division hears all cases involving patents in IPC classes B (performing operations, transporting), D (textiles, paper), E (fixed constructions), G (physics) and H (electricity), while the Munich seat hears cases in IPC classes C and F (chemistry, metallurgy, mechanical engineering, lighting, heating, weapons and blasting) and Milan oversees IPC class A (human necessities).

It is noteworthy that the Milan Central Division has already jumped ahead of Munich in terms of total case load. Furthermore, the findings appear representative of the litigious nature of the respective subject areas.

Taking a closer look at the IPC statistics, human necessity (IPC class A) standalone revocation actions have increased substantially in recent months (25), followed by electronics and electrical based cases (IPC class H) in second place (13).

Before the Milan Central Division opened its doors, human necessity cases were allocated to the Paris Central Division, which may explain the Paris Central Division’s inflated case load.

On the other hand, electronics and electrical based cases lead the way for infringement actions (84), followed by human necessities with 48 cases. If these trends continue it is expected that the case number growth at the Paris and Milan Central Divisions will continue to outstrip those of the Munich Central Division.

It is clear that the central divisions are still primarily utilised for standalone revocation proceedings, although counterclaims for infringement have also been initiated before the Paris Central Division, the only court to have had this type of action brought before it. However, the overall trend favours cases being heard before the local and regional divisions (89% of total cases).

While the total number of counterclaims for revocation continues to broadly track infringement actions, it appears that revocation counterclaims are not being filed as a matter of course in relation to individual infringement actions. Figure 2, below, shows the total number of infringement cases are outpacing revocation counterclaims filed against individual infringement actions (as illustrated by the increasing Δ value). It will therefore be interesting to see whether the trend increases in due course.

Court of Appeal

The UPC Court of Appeal has received 52 appeals by adversely affected parties (under Rule 220.1 of the UPC Rules of Procedure) and 62 appeals against other orders (under Rule 220.2 of the UPC Rules of Procedure). The Court of Appeal has also received its first appeal against a costs decision (under Rule 221 of the UPC Rules of Procedure), in addition to 14 requests for discretionary review, 14 applications for suspensive effect, 25 applications for an order for expedition of an appeal and a single application for a rehearing.

The growth of the Court of Appeal (28% month-on-month) has thus far exceeded that of the Court of First Instance (13% month-on-month) in 2024. This is likely due to the greater number of cases being heard before the First Instance Court that are now open to appeal. Notably, requests for discretionary review have increased nearly five-fold since July 2024, although many of the requests have been dismissed by the Court of Appeal.

Language of proceedings

English continues to be the predominant language at the UPC Court of First Instance, representing 52% of proceedings, with German representing 40% of cases (see figure 3, below). There is also a new entry to the list of languages used before the court as of October 2024, where Danish appears to be used as the language of proceedings in an infringement action before the Copenhagen Local Division.

Somewhat surprisingly, the proportion of cases being heard in Italian in 2024 has decreased. One may have expected the language to be used more frequently, as the Milan Central Division began hearing cases, although this has not come to pass.

We will continue to monitor UPC proceedings closely and bring further updates in the coming months.

Useful link

Caseload of UPC, November 2024 update (PDF): dycip.com/upc-caseload-nov24