On March 11, 2025, the Local Division Mannheim of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) issued a decision in case UPC_CFI_159/2024 concerning European Patent EP 2 028 981, titled "Juice Extractor”. The claimant, Hurom Co., Ltd., a South Korean manufacturer of juicers and blenders, alleged patent infringement against two defendants: NUC Electronics Europe GmbH, based in Germany, and WARMCOOK, based in France.
The case presented complex jurisdictional issues, particularly regarding the applicability of the UPC Agreement (UPCA) to acts of infringement occurring before and after its entry into force on June 1, 2023. The court strictly – and with refreshing clarity - distinguished between the determination of the substantive law applicable to the alleged infringement and the jurisdiction to hear the case. It emphasized that acts committed after the UPCA's entry into force are governed by the UPCA’s substantive law, while acts committed before are subject to national laws.
For ongoing acts that began before and continued after June 1, 2023, the court applied the UPCA, provided the infringer continued their behaviour despite the new legal regime. The court rejected an overly formalistic approach to the concept of “ongoing” acts. Instead, it held that the normative and evaluative perspective must prevail, ensuring that infringers who could have ceased their conduct in light of the UPCA’s entry into force but chose not to are subject to the new regime. However, each party retains the right to rely on national provisions for pre-UPCA acts if these provisions are more favourable to their position. The burden lies with the party invoking national law to substantiate its relevance and advantage.
The decision further clarified the distinction between the intertemporal applicability of substantive law and the period for which information must be provided under the right to information. The UPC’s rights to information, particularly those laid down in Articles 67 and 68(3)(a)(b) UPCA in conjunction with Rule 191 RoP, were interpreted to encompass time periods prior to the UPCA’s entry into force. This interpretation allows for a broad and effective enforcement mechanism for right holders, allowing them to obtain relevant information regarding infringing activities predating the new legal framework.
On the same day, the court issued a procedural order addressing the impact of the recent CJEU decision in Case C-339/22 (BSH Hausgeräte GmbH v. Electrolux AB) on its proceedings. The BSH ruling clarified jurisdictional matters in cross-border patent disputes, particularly concerning the Brussels I Recast Regulation (Brussels Ia). Given that the BSH decision was delivered after the oral hearing but before the court’s decision, the panel faced the challenge of integrating this new precedent without compromising the parties’ right to be heard.
To address this, the court separated the proceedings related to the national parts of the patent in non-UPC countries (Poland, Spain, Turkey, and the United Kingdom). This approach allowed the court to proceed with decisions on parts of the case ready for judgment, avoiding undue delays in enforcing the claimant’s potential patent rights.
The CJEU’s ruling in the BSH case has significant implications for jurisdiction in cross-border patent disputes. It clarified that Article 24(4) of the Brussels Ia Regulation, which grants exclusive jurisdiction to the courts of the state where the patent is registered for questions regarding validity, applies only to actions principally concerning the registration or validity of a patent. In pure infringement actions, even when invalidity is raised as a defence, the court seized under Article 4(1) (i.e., the defendant’s domicile) remains competent to decide the infringement issue. This means that patent proprietors can bring a single infringement claim at the defendant’s domicile for multiple national parts of a European patent, even when those parts are validated in different EU Member States and potentially in third states.
