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The Unified Patent Court clarified a couple of things in two separate orders (one by its Court of Appeal and one by the Paris Local Division) on Thursday:

1. The 15-day window for an appeal begins either with the appealed decision if that one grants leavel for an appeal, or otherwise with a subsequent order allowing the appeal. Toyota Motor Corporation wanted a revocation appeal by Neo Wireless (probably the most significant standard-essential patent holder to be suing car makers now, as Neo is not an Avanci member) to be dismissed for being out of time, counting from the judgment, not the order that allowed the appeal.

It was not the key issue here, but it's worth nothing that the appeals court's decision acknowledges well-known problems with the UPC's Case Management System (CMS), which are a major embarrassment, especially since almost a year has passed since the UPC started to accept filings. Were the UPC a private company, some people would have been fired; and were it a government agency under direct democratic control, a parliamentary inquiry into this abysmal failure and suspected dereliction of duty would have to take place. If the UPC doesn't get this under control in the near term, the professional honor and sense of responsibility of some of the key players must be questioned.

PDF: https://unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/files/api_order/5634616C745F043FD28C30F13EE274F0_en.pdf

2. Art. 33(1)(b) UPCA allows infringement and similar/related actions to be brought in "the local division hosted by the Contracting Member State where the defendant or, in the case of multiple defendants, one of the defendants has its residence, or principal place of business, or in the absence of residence or principal place of business, its place of business, or the regional division in which that Contracting Member State participates." With respect to a multi-defendant action, it goes on to clarify: "An action may be brought against multiple defendants only where the defendants have a commercial relationship and where the action relates to the same alleged infringement."

The Paris LD, with the involvement of Helsinki-based Judge Petri Rinkinen, has now clarified (in a case brought by a U.S.-based patent holder named ICPillar against a long list of European Arm entities) that affiliate entities from the same corporate group engaged in materially the same kind of business generally meet the "commercial relationship" requirement. The Arm companies argued that "a certain quality and intensity" of such a relationship should be required. The court didn't disagree, but in the interest of avoiding duplicative proceedings, the quality-and-intensity hurdle is nowhere near as high as Arm had suggested.

PDF: https://unified-patent-court.org/sites/default/files/upc_documents/PO%20order%20Arm%20v%20ICPillar%2011%20April%202024%20Version%20Finale%20PR%20CG%20CL%20signed%20CL%20PR-CG.pdf