Wolf Greenfield Attorneys Review 2024 and Look Ahead to 2025
What You Need to Know About the Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is revolutionizing the way patents are enforced in Europe, and McDermott’s intellectual property (IP) team is here to help you navigate this dynamic landscape. Our Legal Lens on the Unified...more
On June 1, 2025, the Unified Patent Court marked its second anniversary - we are one of very few firms that has top-tier patent litigators in all major EU jurisdictions and the UK – we’ve been defending clients in...more
The UPC has a Court of First Instance (divided into local, regional and central divisions) and a Court of Appeal (Luxembourg). Cases can commence in any one of these divisions according to the subject matter and the...more
UPC case law on the assessment of inventive step is still evolving. Most local division (LD) decisions have indicated a slightly diverging practice from the EPO’s problem-solution approach. However, more recently, others have...more
The beginning of 2025 saw two overarching trends in FRAND litigation...more
Recent decisions from various UPC divisions provide valuable guidance for parties seeking to amend their cases or patents. The decisions emphasize that it is crucial for parties to know how to distinguish between the rules...more
The Munich Higher Regional Court issued a decision concerning the fair, reasonable, and nondiscriminatory (FRAND) negotiation process and an implementer’s obligation to provide security if a license offer for standard...more
In November 2024, the Local Division (LD) Mannheim of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) issued the UPC’s first-ever substantive decision on standard essential patents (SEPs) and fair, reasonable, and non-discriminatory (FRAND)...more
Patent holders must start Unified Patent Court (UPC) proceedings on the merits within a certain period if they do not want to risk the revocation of provisional measures. The UPC has now clarified that filing the statement of...more
In a landmark decision Fives ECL, SAS v. REEL GmbH on January 16, 2025, the Court of Appeal (CoA) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) clarified the jurisdictional boundaries of the UPC. This decision has far-reaching...more
The threat of German patent litigation is rising. Germany is second only to the United States in the number of patent infringement actions brought by non-practicing entities (NPEs), and with the ready availability of...more
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is revolutionizing the way patents are enforced in Europe, and McDermott’s intellectual property team is here to help you navigate this dynamic landscape. Our Legal Lens on the Unified Patent...more
To date, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has not held a trial involving standard-essential patents (SEPs). However, the new forum’s Mannheim Local Division has now authored its first SEP-specific order in a case between...more
The UPC, a single patent court for European Union Member States, has published the first statistics on its case load since its establishment in 2023. Between June 1, 2023, and January 31, 2024, a total of 196 cases were filed...more
On 18 October 2023, the Düsseldorf local division of the UPC in myStromer vs. Revolt Zycling (UPC_CFI_177/2023) imposed a EUR26,500 penalty on Revolt for breaching a preliminary injunction. This is the first penalty payment...more
In Astellas v. Osaka University (UPC_CFI_75/2023), by decision of 21 September 2023, the UPC Munich Central Division denied a third party access to the case file, specifically to Astellas’ revocation action, which was...more
The Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Local Division Munich has granted a preliminary injunction in favor of 10x Genomics, preventing NanoString Technologies, Inc. from selling its CosMx Spatial Molecular Imager (SMI) instruments...more
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has issued its first reasoned decisions since launching on June 1 and, as expected, the decisions favor patentees. The UPC’s Local Division Düsseldorf ordered a preliminary injunction in one...more
A significant development in the patent world will take place on June 1, 2023, when European Union members will begin participating in a Unified Patent Court, or UPC. Originally agreed upon by most EU member states in January...more
On February 17, 2023, Germany ratified the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and triggered the UPC’s entry into force on June 1, 2023. The UPC will revolutionize patent enforcement across Europe and impact companies...more