Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent

The Unified Patent Court in brief

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is a court common to the participating EU Member States that decides on the infringement and validity of European patents and Unitary Patents. It began operating on 1 June 2023 and has rapidly become one of the most important patent courts in the world.

A single UPC action can lead to an injunction and damages covering every participating state in which the patent has effect (Article 34 of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court, UPCA). Germany hosts four local divisions, in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Mannheim and Munich, as well as a section of the central division in Munich, which makes the Unified Patent Court a central forum for companies doing business in Germany.

For patentees, the UPC offers multi-country enforcement from one court with a fixed procedural timetable. For defendants and competitors, it offers a central revocation action that can remove a European patent in all participating states at once. This page explains the court's structure and jurisdiction, the Unitary Patent, long-arm jurisdiction after the CJEU's BSH v Electrolux judgment, provisional measures, the opt-out and SEP/FRAND cases. For national proceedings, see our page on patent litigation in Germany.

Structure of the Unified Patent Court

The UPC consists of a Court of First Instance, a Court of Appeal and a Registry. According to the European Patent Office, the Court of First Instance comprises a central division, with its seat in Paris and a section in Munich, and several local and regional divisions; the Court of Appeal sits in Luxembourg. The government of North Rhine-Westphalia confirmed at the start of operations that German local divisions sit in Düsseldorf, Munich, Mannheim and Hamburg. The UPCA also establishes a Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre with seats in Ljubljana and Lisbon (Article 35 UPCA).

Panels are multinational and include legally qualified judges and, where needed, technically qualified judges. The language of proceedings before a local division is in principle the official language of the host state, but states may designate an official EPO language, and the parties may agree, or a party may request, that the case be heard in the language in which the patent was granted (Article 49 UPCA). In practice, English is widely used, including before the German local divisions.

Jurisdiction and the Unitary Patent

The UPC has exclusive competence for infringement and revocation actions, declarations of non-infringement, provisional measures, counterclaims concerning licences and related actions concerning European patents, supplementary protection certificates and Unitary Patents (Article 32(1) UPCA). National courts remain competent for actions outside that list, such as entitlement disputes and many contractual claims, including licence fee claims that do not fall within the UPC's catalogue. Where a dispute combines UPC and national elements, parties may need to litigate in both systems in parallel.

The Unitary Patent is a European patent with unitary effect in the participating EU Member States, based on Regulation (EU) No 1257/2012. The EPO states that it can provide protection in up to 18 EU Member States through a single request. Unitary effect must be requested within one month of the publication of the mention of grant of the European patent. A Unitary Patent is always subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court and cannot be opted out. Conventional European patents remain available, validated country by country, and they too fall under the UPC's jurisdiction unless opted out.

Germany has adapted its rules on double protection. A German national patent and a European patent for the same invention can coexist, and the German patent only loses its effect where the European patent has been opted out of the UPC (Article II § 8 of the Act on International Patent Conventions). Many applicants therefore file German and European applications in parallel and keep the German patent as a national fallback that cannot be revoked centrally.

Remedies on the merits

Where the Unified Patent Court finds infringement, it may grant a permanent injunction against the infringer and against intermediaries whose services are used to infringe, backed by recurring penalty payments (Article 63 UPCA). It can order corrective measures such as a declaration of infringement, recall, removal from the channels of commerce and destruction, at the infringer's expense (Article 64 UPCA), and require the infringer to disclose the origin, distribution channels, quantities and prices of infringing products (Article 67 UPCA).

Damages are awarded against an infringer who knew or had reasonable grounds to know of the infringement; they aim to place the injured party in the position it would have been in without the infringement, may take lost profits and the infringer's unfair profits into account, and are not punitive (Article 68 UPCA).

Costs, security and appeals

The unsuccessful party generally bears the reasonable and proportionate legal costs of the successful party, up to a ceiling set under the Rules of Procedure (Article 69(1) UPCA). Defendants can ask the court to order the claimant to provide security for costs, especially in proceedings for provisional measures (Article 69(4) UPCA). Appeals against final decisions must be lodged with the Court of Appeal within two months of notification; for orders on provisional measures, evidence and information the period is only 15 calendar days (Article 73 UPCA). These short deadlines require appeal decisions to be prepared while the first-instance case is still running.

Settlement and mediation

Settlement is possible at any stage, and the court encourages it. The Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre provides facilities for mediation and arbitration of patent disputes within the UPCA's scope, although a patent cannot be revoked or limited in mediation or arbitration proceedings (Article 35(2) UPCA). Settlements of multi-country disputes should address all parallel national and UPC proceedings, the status of pending revocation actions and oppositions, and, for SEPs, the licence terms for the entire portfolio.

Long-arm jurisdiction after BSH v Electrolux

In its Grand Chamber judgment of 25 February 2025 in BSH Hausgeräte (C-339/22), the CJEU held that a court of the Member State where the defendant is domiciled, seised of an action for infringement of a patent granted in another Member State, retains jurisdiction over that infringement action even if the defendant challenges the validity of the patent as a defence.

The courts of the granting state retain exclusive jurisdiction to rule on validity itself, and the infringement court may stay its proceedings. For patents granted in third states, such as the United Kingdom or Turkey, the court of the defendant's domicile may also assess validity, with effect only between the parties.

The judgment has transformed cross-border enforcement. Patentees can sue an EU-domiciled defendant in its home court for infringement of many national patents, including national parts of a European patent outside the UPC system. UPC divisions have begun to apply the reasoning through Article 71b of the Brussels Ia Regulation, which treats the UPC as a court of a Member State for jurisdictional purposes, including for national parts of European patents in states outside the UPC system. Our insight on long-arm jurisdiction after BSH v Electrolux analyses the consequences for forum choice.

Provisional measures at the Unified Patent Court

The Unified Patent Court can grant provisional injunctions against an alleged infringer or an intermediary, order the seizure or delivery up of suspected infringing products and, if recovery of damages is endangered, order the precautionary seizure of assets, including the blocking of bank accounts (Article 62 UPCA). In deciding, the court weighs the interests of the parties and the potential harm from granting or refusing the injunction. It may require the applicant to provide reasonable evidence that it is the rightholder and that infringement is occurring or imminent.

The Court of Appeal set out the standard of conviction early in the court's life in the 10x Genomics v NanoString matter: the court must be satisfied with a sufficient degree of certainty that the patent is valid and infringed, which requires infringement to be more likely than not and excludes relief where the patent is, on balance, more likely than not to be invalid.

Urgency matters: an applicant who waits too long after learning of the infringement risks losing provisional relief. If measures are revoked or prove unjustified, the applicant must compensate the defendant. See our notes on preliminary injunctions at the UPC and the 10x Genomics v NanoString decision.

Opt-out strategy and the transitional period

During a transitional period of seven years from the UPCA's entry into force, actions concerning conventional European patents may still be brought before national courts (Article 83(1) UPCA). Patent proprietors and applicants may opt out European patents from the UPC's exclusive competence, unless an action has already been brought before the UPC; the opt-out must be notified to the Registry at the latest one month before the transitional period expires (Article 83(3) UPCA).

An opt-out can be withdrawn unless a national action has been brought, but a withdrawn opt-out cannot be repeated. The Administrative Committee may extend the transitional period by up to seven years following a consultation five years after entry into force (Article 83(5) UPCA).

The opt-out decision turns on a simple trade-off. Opting out protects a valuable patent from central revocation in all UPC states at once. Staying in keeps open the option of multi-country enforcement through a single UPC action. Many proprietors opt out their crown-jewel patents in mature markets and keep others in the system, or rely on parallel German patents as a fallback. The decision should be reviewed periodically as UPC case law develops.

Illustration: a hypothetical German medical technology company holds a portfolio of European patents. It opts out the two patents that protect its best-selling product line, because a central revocation would expose its main revenue in all UPC states at once.

It keeps its newer patents in the UPC system, including some with unitary effect, so that it can enforce them across Europe through a single action if competitors copy them, and for the most important of these it maintains parallel German patents, which keep their effect as long as the European patent is not opted out. It reviews the allocation each year as its product lines and the case law develop. Our insight on UPC opt-out strategy walks through the options.

SEP and FRAND cases at the Unified Patent Court

Standard-essential patent (SEP) holders have used the Unified Patent Court from its first months, often choosing German local divisions. The UPC applies the framework of the CJEU's Huawei v ZTE judgment (C-170/13) to the antitrust defence raised by implementers, and the Mannheim local division has issued decisions examining the parties' negotiation conduct and the FRAND rate.

Because a UPC injunction covers all participating states where the patent has effect, the leverage for licence negotiations is considerable. Implementers should prepare their FRAND position, security and counter-offers before litigation starts. Our analysis of SEP and FRAND disputes in Germany and the UPC and of Panasonic v Oppo covers the developing case law.

Front-loaded procedure is a defining feature of the UPC. Parties must present their full case early, with evidence, and the court works to a tight written timetable followed by an interim conference and an oral hearing. Defendants have limited time to prepare the defence and any counterclaim for revocation, which makes early investment in prior-art searches and technical expertise essential. Public access to pleadings and evidence can be requested by third parties under the court's rules, so confidential information should be marked and protected from the outset.

How TRW & Co helps

We advise patentees and defendants on proceedings before the Unified Patent Court, in close cooperation with patent attorneys. We assess forum choice between the UPC and national courts, prepare infringement actions, revocation actions and counterclaims, and apply for or defend against provisional measures. We advise on opt-out and opt-out withdrawal strategy, Unitary Patent filing decisions and the coordination of UPC proceedings with German and foreign national cases. For SEP disputes, we develop FRAND negotiation and litigation strategies. To discuss a matter, please contact us. See also our overview of IP and patents. This page is general information, not legal advice.