The measure of success for the UPC and its users: three years in
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Unitary Patent system is now almost three years old. In that time, it has made a big impact on patenting and litigation activity in Europe.
Those following the UPC’s development before it opened for business on 1 June 2023 may recall predictions that many potential users would rather stay away from the court. In particular, they had big pharma in mind. Much concern focused on the fact that, for a long time, the court would be untested and its lack of case law would mean inconsistency. Others feared that it would favour claimants.
How then, after three years, can we assess the success of the new court? We can examine the cases filed and European patents converted to unitary status as one measure of impact. But, to understand the consistency and balance with which the court is dealing with parties, we need to look at patterns in its decision making.
The court is still young but, although it is difficult to draw firm conclusions from the data, we know enough about preliminary injunction activity and decisions. Our firm has been involved in one in four of these cases.
A comparison of revocation decisions between the central division and the local divisions is also revealing when addressing some of the above concerns expressed about the court.
Is the system being used?
The annual uptake rate of European patents with unitary effect, which began promisingly enough, has further increased from 25% in 2024 to 30% in 2026. By the end of March 2026, the EPO dashboard confirms that 87,000 Unitary Patents have been registered (not including those that have lapsed), representing almost 25% of European patents granted to global companies (and over one third of patents granted to companies in EPO states).
Medical technology accounts for by far the largest number of Unitary Patents (11%), followed by computer technology (5%), and digital communication (5%). Uptake of the Unitary Patent has exceeded even optimistic initial expectations, with no indication that interest is waning.
There has been similar popularity for filing cases in the UPC. Some caution is needed here, as figures can differ according to how the cases are counted. However, according to the UPC Registry’s own figures, a total of 1,183 actions had been filed (as of end of March 2026). This includes infringement actions, revocation claims, revocation counterclaims and preliminary injunctions.
Table 1 shows infringement filings and indicates that the number of new cases for the year beginning June 2025 has already surpassed the total for 2024/2025. Our firm has participated in one out of every seven of these actions.
The trend is somewhat different, however, for the other forms of action. In particular, the number of revocation actions in 2024/2025 was down on the first year of the court’s operation. This may still recover in 2025/2026, but the pattern is most evident for revocation counterclaims. So, this downward trend cannot be explained by parties opting merely to file in response to an infringement action rather than initiate litigation with revocation proceedings.
What could be happening?
One of the first questions potential users of the UPC ask concerns patentee success rates. Caution is required here too, because the win rates do not reflect the complexity of the decision making involved, or the differing facts and issues raised. To date, there has not been any widespread observation from users that the UPC is too ‘patentee friendly’. However, in the relatively small number of revocation cases decided so far in the central division, patents have been revoked in only 33% of cases.
Compare this with revocation success rates in the leading local divisions, where revocation is filed as a counterclaim. Whilst the successful revocation rate in the Düsseldorf Local Division is even lower (at 25%), in each of the Munich, Hamburg, Mannheim and Hague Local Divisions there has been a 50% success rate for revocation counterclaims. This is a significant difference, which suggests that the prospects of a successful attack on a patent are higher by counterclaim in these divisions than in the central division. As discussed, however, this has not been reflected in the filing statistics, which so far this year indicate a continuing drop in revocation counterclaims, but a levelling off of revocation filings in the Central Division.
Table 1: Actions filed in the UPC over time
Where are preliminary injunctions being filed?
Why do preliminary injunction filings also appear to have levelled off over the last year? One possibility is the greater emphasis on the necessity for preliminary relief before the court will grant the injunction. In particular, the Court of Appeal, in Biolitec v Light Guide (24 February 2025), stated that provisional measures can only be granted if, considering the nature of the case, proceedings on the merits cannot be awaited.
Provisional measures are not necessary where proceedings on the merits can be awaited, since these proceedings offer more robust procedural safeguards. This must be taken into account when assessing the potential harm for either of the parties resulting from the granting or the refusal of the injunction. In this case, the court held that Biolitec had not demonstrated that provisional measures were necessary, noting its current market share and prices were not at risk while awaiting a decision on the merits. This shift may have caused parties to hold back from filing preliminary injunction applications in some circumstances where they would not have done do previously.
The most popular division in which to file infringement actions continues to be the Munich Local Division (see Table 2), followed at some distance by the Düsseldorf and Mannheim divisions. The Hague and Hamburg Local Divisions come in joint fourth. But, the pattern is different for preliminary injunctions. Here, Düsseldorf rivals the popularity of Munich.
Table 2: Most popular venues for infringement actions and preliminary injunctions
On close examination of preliminary injunction filings over time, as shown in Table 3, both The Hague and Hamburg Local Divisions have become more popular only recently. Why might this be?
Table 3: Preliminary injunction applications filed per venue over time
One possible explanation for this pattern is the way these Local Divisions deal with questions of urgency – that is, how quickly an application for provisional measures must be made. On this issue, the Local Division Munich in Syngenta v Sumi (27 August 2024) stated that it would adhere to a two-month safe harbour period for applications, calculated from when the infringement became known. However, in Valeo v Magna (31 October 2024) the Düsseldorf Local Division appeared to take a more relaxed approach, saying that it should not be understood that there is a fixed deadline by which the applicant must submit its application. In particular, in Occlutech v Lepu (21 October 2025), the court held that the urgency required to apply for provisional measures is lacking only in limited circumstances. This includes if the infringed party has behaved in such a negligent and hesitant manner in pursuing its claims that, from an objective perspective, it must be concluded that the infringed party is not interested in promptly enforcing its rights.
In Cilag v Rivolution (29 August 2025), The Hague Local Division permitted a delay of almost five months before the preliminary injunction application was made. So, if Düsseldorf and The Hague have formed a reputation for a more permissive approach to urgency, this may explain their growing popularity as venues for preliminary injunction applications.
What are the success rates for preliminary injunctions?
Another question to address is whether there are differences in patentee success rates between the Local Divisions. Clearly, if one division becomes known as more favourable to patentees than another, then it will attract more applicants. However, on the basis of the relatively limited number of cases decided so far, the most popular Local Divisions are remarkably consistent: patentees win at first instance in approximately two thirds of cases in Munich, Düsseldorf, Hamburg and The Hague.
An alternative, or additional, explanation is that the Munich court has been so busy with infringement actions that applicants worry it may be slower. But, aided by a second chamber, this is not the case. In fact, although the complexity and pleadings history of some cases can affect averages, the time taken for the Munich Local Division to decide preliminary injunctions is approximately the same as The Hague, at four months from application. The Düsseldorf court is very slightly longer, at four and a half months, and the Hamburg Local Division quicker, at an average of three months.
If applicants only had speed in mind, Hamburg would be more popular than the other venues.
What patent subject matter is being litigated?
A characteristic of patent litigation relating to medical devices is that it is often between parties who develop and manufacture devices in their own right, and possess their own patent portfolios. Such portfolios may be large and cover a number of different aspects of a device. Furthermore, because the features of medical devices tend to evolve with time, new patents are continually being prosecuted and granted.
These characteristics have consequences for patent litigation in the UPC because the prospect of any one patent being revoked carries a lower risk than it does in the field of small molecule pharmaceuticals, and there may be more options to injunct a given product. This has allowed patentees a freer hand when it comes to risk in the UPC: a very large market can be covered by an injunction, without the ‘all eggs in one basket’ risk of revocation presented by ‘crown jewel’ pharmaceutical patents. This has been reflected in a large number of medical device cases in the UPC, both on the merits and preliminary injunctions. In fact, medical device cases, together with electronics related subject matter, for which similar considerations apply, make up a large proportion of the cases filed in the UPC.
What about small molecule and biologics pharma patents? This is one area where many predicted that manufacturers would remain out of the UPC, by opting out their patents. By comparison to other technology areas, this concern has been borne out to some extent. There have, nonetheless, been cases concerning biosimilars and generics, both in infringement and preliminary injunctions actions, concerning such subject matter as treatments for multiple sclerosis (Merz v Viatris Santé), hemoglobinuria (Alexion v Samsung Bioepis) and fibrotic diseases (Boehringer v Zentiva). Indeed, with the UPC proving already to give largely consistent decision making, growing confidence in the court may mean that cases for this kind of subject matter will increase in future.
Conclusions
After three years of operation, there are signs that many of the early concerns about the UPC have not been realised. Indeed, as far as popularity with users is concerned, the court is very busy, including a few pharma cases. These users include the biggest names in their industries. Whilst there has been a fluctuation in revocation and revocation counterclaim filings, this does not appear to be because users have any concerns about the objectivity, speed and quality of the decisions and orders being made by the court. This applies also to the most popular Local Divisions in the UPC which, as the preliminary injunction cases illustrate, show remarkable consistency in how actions are handled. Meanwhile, as a leading practitioner firm in the UPC, we at Taylor Wessing continue to build our knowledge and experience for clients in all these areas.
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