Tilman Pfrang, LL.M. | 9th February 2026
January’s decisions and orders further refine the UPC’s practice. The Paris Local Division addressed urgency, added matter and the evidentiary threshold for software infringement at PI stage. The Munich Local Division clarified the limits of “possible infringing use” for medical devices and dealt with the cost consequences of conditional counterclaims. The Paris Central Division issued detailed guidance on how auxiliary requests must be drafted under Rule 30 RoP. Finally, the Düsseldorf Local Division demonstrated a pragmatic approach to stalled service abroad in PI proceedings against a China-based seller.
Paris Local Division (UPC_CFI_808/2025, Order of 23 January 2026)
In Guardant Health v Sophia Genetics, the Paris Local Division refused provisional measures concerning three liquid biopsy and bioinformatics patents. The Court dealt, first, with urgency under Rule 211.4 RoP and held that a three-month preparation period may be acceptable in a technically complex multi-patent case. It distinguished between general market awareness and sufficiently specific technical knowledge enabling a substantiated infringement analysis, accepting as the relevant starting point the date on which the applicant first had concrete product information allowing a meaningful technical assessment. On validity, the Court found that two patents were more likely than not invalid for added matter, rejecting any “reservoir” approach that seeks to assemble claim combinations from scattered passages without a clear pointer in the parent disclosure. It considered multiple unprompted selections from lists – such as selecting specific cancers and a particular gene-panel structure – as strongly indicative of added matter. As to the third patent, the application failed on infringement: the Court held that press releases and high-level marketing materials were insufficient to establish software-based infringement with the “sufficient degree of certainty” required by Rule 211.2 RoP, stressing the need for deeper technical insight into how the accused platform actually processes data.
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Munich Local Division (UPC_CFI_628/2024; UPC_CFI_125/2025, Decision of 13 January 2026)
In Emboline v AorticLab, the Munich Local Division dismissed an infringement action relating to an embolic protection device. The dispute turned on whether the accused device implemented a “graspable structure … engageable by a hook” for retrieval within a catheter. While the Court reaffirmed that infringement is not necessarily excluded merely because a product is typically used in a non-infringing way, it introduced an important limitation for medical devices: a merely hypothetical claim-compliant use does not suffice where the alleged implementation would arise only in an abnormal, unsafe, or non-standard emergency scenario. The Court also dealt with a revocation counterclaim that the defendant converted at the oral hearing into a request conditional upon a finding of infringement. It treated this change as a limitation within the meaning of Rule 263.3 RoP and held that conditional counterclaims are not excluded as a matter of principle. However, because infringement was denied, the condition did not occur and no validity decision could be rendered under Art. 76.1 UPCA. The Court nevertheless ordered the counterclaimant to bear the costs generated by the counterclaim under Art. 69.3 UPCA, treating them as unnecessary costs caused by the defendant’s procedural structuring; overall, given the mirrored values, each party bore its own costs.
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Paris Central Division (UPC_CFI_433/2024, Decision of 7 January 2026)
In Microsoft v Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing, the Paris seat of the Central Division revoked EP 2 671 173 in its entirety and provided extensive guidance on the admissibility and presentation of auxiliary requests under Rule 30 RoP. The Court distinguished between objective admissibility requirements – such as compliance with the Rule 30 deadline, inclusion of at least one amendment, and formulation in the language of the patent – and discretionary requirements relating to intelligibility, adequate explanation (including on Art. 84 EPC and Art. 123(2)/(3) EPC), and whether requests are reasonable in number. The Court’s central message was that amendments must be immediately intelligible without the Court reconstructing what the proprietor “must have meant”, consistent with the front-loaded structure of the RoP and the practical need for register-ready claim sets. It held that mere deletion may not require a consolidated document, but substantive amendments generally require filing a complete amended claim set within the Rule 30 deadline.
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Düsseldorf Local Division (UPC_CFI_515/2025, Order of 19 December 2025; follow-up to 17 October 2025)
In Hewlett-Packard Development Company v Shenzhen Moan Technology, the Düsseldorf Local Division issued a follow-up order completing the provisional-measures package against a China-based defendant selling printer cartridges via Amazon. With service in China stalled, the Court relied on “good service” under Rule 275.2 RoP, deeming the steps taken to bring the application to the defendant’s attention sufficient and treating service as effective as of the date set in its earlier order. The Court proceeded by way of a regular PI order notwithstanding the defendant’s non-participation, rejecting the notion that a non-participating defendant should trigger default-judgment mechanics under Rule 355 RoP and emphasising that the PI regime under Rules 205 et seq. RoP follows its own structure. On urgency (Rule 211.4 RoP), the Court accepted HP’s tight evidence-gathering timeline—rapid test purchases, laboratory testing, and compilation of the infringement record—finding no unreasonable delay where the application was filed promptly once the evidentiary record was complete. The Court also declined to order enforcement security under Rule 211.5 RoP, exercising discretion in light of the defendant’s lack of engagement and the absence of apparent grounds necessitating a bond.
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