European Union courts including CJEU and General Court
The CJEU held that state-of-the-art geo-blocking prevents a “communication to the public” in a protected member state, and that the possibility of VPN circumvention does not defeat that conclusion — clearing a path for open-access digital editions of historically significant works across EU borders.
Europe’s highest court dismissed Google’s final appeal on July 2, 2026, confirming the €4.1 billion Android antitrust fine — the largest upheld competition penalty in EU history — and opening the door for private damages suits by rivals harmed by Google’s pre-installation practices.
The UPC Düsseldorf Local Division rules that Article 72 UPCA’s five-year limitation period covers only financial compensation — not injunctions — confirming that patent holders face no time bar on seeking pan-European injunctive relief regardless of when infringement was discovered.
The UPC Court of Appeal ruled that the Unified Patent Court can accept jurisdiction over patent infringement in non-member states like the UK, but overturned a Mannheim injunction on substantive grounds — establishing a three-category framework for managing long-arm claims.
In a landmark AI liability ruling, the Regional Court of Munich held that Google bears direct liability for false statements generated by its AI Overviews feature, treating the AI-synthesized content as Google’s own speech rather than third-party material hosted by a search intermediary.
The First Board of Appeal of the European Union Intellectual Property Office dismissed an appeal against refusal to register “MICKEY IS FREE!” as an EU trademark for clothing, finding that despite the applicant’s public-domain commentary intent, average consumers would focus on “MICKEY” and associate it with Disney.
The EU General Court annulled EUIPO’s decision refusing to invalidate a Polish entrepreneur’s ‘Obelix’ trademark registration for firearms and ammunition, finding the office failed to properly assess the famous comic character mark’s reputation and the risk of reputational damage.
The EU General Court annuls EUIPO’s decision that allowed a Polish entrepreneur to keep the ‘Obelix’ trademark for firearms and ammunition, finding the agency failed to properly assess the famous comic character’s trademark reputation.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that EU member states may require platforms like Meta to compensate press publishers for use of their news content, validating national regulators’ authority to set fair remuneration criteria and impose penalties.
The Unified Patent Court’s Düsseldorf Local Division denied Align Technology’s application for provisional measures against Chinese competitor Angelalign, ruling that promotional materials alone cannot establish patent infringement without independent technical analysis.
The Court of Justice of the EU ruled that member states may require online platforms to pay fair compensation to press publishers for use of news snippets, upholding Italian legislation implementing the DSM Copyright Directive.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled in a Grand Chamber decision that online platforms like Meta must provide fair compensation to press publishers when displaying snippets or previews of news articles, clarifying the scope of the EU Copyright Directive (2019/790).
In a historic first, the UPC Court of Appeal has referred four questions to the CJEU on whether UPC local divisions can assert long-arm jurisdiction over patent infringement occurring in non-UPC contracting states.
In a case marking OpenAI’s first significant patent lawsuit in Europe, the UPC Court of Appeal overturned the Paris Local Division and held that the UPC has no jurisdiction to adjudicate patent infringement in non-UPC contracting states like the UK, Switzerland, and Spain.
The UPC Central Division in Milan revoked the Academy of Military Medical Sciences’ European patent on the use of remdesivir to treat COVID-19, finding the claimed invention lacked inventive step because prior art published just ten days before the priority date already identified remdesivir as likely effective against the newly emerged Wuhan coronavirus.
The CJEU held that a retirement home’s retransmission of satellite TV and radio signals to residents’ rooms via internal cable does not constitute a ‘communication to the public’ under EU copyright law, because residents are not a ‘new public’ beyond the original broadcast audience.
The Court of Justice of the European Union ruled that Article 9(5) of the IP Enforcement Directive precludes national laws that allow provisional trademark measures to remain in force indefinitely when the rights-holder fails to file substantive proceedings within the mandatory deadline.
The UPC Mannheim Local Division issued an ex parte anti-anti-suit injunction ordering Geely to withdraw its Chinese interim licence application or face fines up to €50 million, in a landmark ruling reinforcing that the right to enforce a patent includes its procedural enforceability.
In the latest chapter of the 25-year Kraftwerk sampling dispute, the CJEU Grand Chamber held that the copyright ‘pastiche’ exception is not a catch-all but requires overt, recognizable artistic dialogue with the source work — with major implications for sampling, remix culture, and AI-generated content.
The CJEU Grand Chamber ruled that pastiche under Article 5(3)(k) of the InfoSoc Directive requires an objectively recognizable artistic dialogue with the source work, expressly excluding concealed imitations and plagiarism.
The CJEU Grand Chamber ruled that EU copyright’s ‘pastiche’ exception is not a catch-all defense but covers creations that use characteristic copyrighted elements to engage in recognizable artistic dialogue with existing works — a landmark holding for music sampling, remix culture, and AI-generated content across the EU.
In a same-day companion ruling to Meril v. Edwards, the UPC Court of Appeal articulated a comprehensive inventive-step framework: identify the objective problem from the perspective of the skilled person, choose a realistic starting point in the prior art, and assess whether the skilled person ‘would’ (not merely ‘could’) have arrived at the claimed solution. The decision also clarifies medical-use claim format, sufficiency, added matter, and burden of proof.
Same-day companion to Amgen v. Sanofi/Regeneron, the UPC Court of Appeal in Meril v. Edwards held that the ‘same parties’ test under Art. 33(4) UPCA looks to identity of interests; that disclosed embodiments are generally covered by the patent claims unless the specification clearly teaches otherwise; and importantly that an inventive step may be found even where the claimed solution is merely a ‘non-obvious alternative’ to known prior-art solutions.
The UPC Court of Appeal set out a workable test for when a generic pharmaceutical’s pre-launch activity creates an imminent threat of infringement supporting provisional measures: a bare marketing authorisation does not, but completion of national health-technology-assessment, pricing, and reimbursement procedures can — depending on the regulatory and commercial context.
The UPC Düsseldorf Local Division articulated the substantive framework for second medical-use claim infringement: the alleged infringer must offer or place the medicinal product on the market in a way that leads or may lead to the claimed therapeutic use, with knowledge or constructive knowledge that it does. Procedurally, the panel rejected “pleading ignorance” as a recognized form of defense, holding that the UPC Rules of Procedure do not acknowledge that pleading style.
The CJEU Grand Chamber held that Article 4(1) of Regulation 1215/2012 entitles a court of a defendant’s domicile member state to hear infringement claims regarding a European patent’s national parts validated in other member states (and even in non-EU states), notwithstanding invalidity defenses raised under Article 24(4). The decision dramatically expands cross-border patent litigation in the EU and is the doctrinal foundation for the UPC’s long-arm jurisdiction over non-UPC-state patent rights.