First insights into the UPC patent litigation in Europe

13/07/2023

The start of the Unified Patent Court shows that, as expected, Munich is the venue of choice for UPC patent litigation and in particular patent owner plaintiffs. Following the transfer of two revocation actions from Paris, there are now nine UPC cases pending before the two UPC divisions in Munich, fifteen before the UPC divisions in Germany, two before the Nordic-Baltic regional division and one in Milan. Thus, case filings heavily concentrate on Munich, with the remainder scattered across Europe or the remaining German local divisions Hamburg and Düsseldorf.

In the electronics and telecommunications sector, one case before the local division in Munich relates to a patent granted to Huawei, where the parties (patentee, licensor, or alleged infringer) are currently unknown. The patent relates to Wi-Fi 6 technology.

A further case before the Munich local division is Philips vs. Belkin for a power transmitter and power receiver using wireless inductive power transfer.

Another example from the avalanche of lawsuits before the Munich local division is Broadcom vs. Tesla on a patent for a programmable hybrid polar/cartesian transmitter.

The value of the disputes currently ranges from EUR 500,000 to EUR 10 million, and in the electronics and telecommunications sector no case is less than EUR 1 million, so that the prevailing party of all these tech cases may be reimbursed a maximum of EUR 112,000 for attorneys’ and patent attorneys’ fees and other costs just for the infringement proceedings.

From a life sciences perspective, all 3 revocation actions are in the pharmaceutical space with EP3666797 bringing forth a number of aspects that were foreseen before the UPC opened its doors. EP3666797 is one of 13 EP parent/divisional applications, only some of which are not opted out, showing that companies with deep pockets are willing to hedge in both the national and UP courts as long as the transition period allows it. The patent is also still within the opposition period (granted in May 2023) meaning that the revocation action should be close to completion (assuming the courts stick to their 12-month timeline!) before Amgen have even responded to any EP oppositions that may be filed against this patent.

In addition to these actions before the courts, there have been 236 protective letters filed: Communication on the 7th UPC Administrative Committee meeting on 26 June 2023 | Unified Patent Court (unified-patent-court.org) which will be a novelty for many practitioners whose jurisdictions have not traditionally allowed for protective letters.

This article is for general information only. Its content is not a statement of the law on any subject and does not constitute advice. Please contact Reddie & Grose LLP for advice before taking any action in reliance on it.