Official UPC Year in Review – Five highlights from 2025

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) recently released its second official Annual Review, a copy of which can be found on the UPC’s website at UPC Annual Review 2025. This helpful annual report provides a comprehensive overview of the UPC’s activity, case trends, and operational developments over the course of 2025. We have picked out five highlights from the report that will be of interest to users of the UPC:

1. Statistics from the UPC in 2025
   1. The number of cases filed increased substantially. From inception of the Court in June 2023 to 1 December 2025, the UPC has dealt with 494 infringement actions, 415 counterclaims for revocation, 88 standalone revocation actions, 91 applications for provisional measures and 43 applications for preserving evidence, for inspection or to freeze assets. By way of comparison, in June and December 2025, it received a total of 55 and 72 main cases (infringement and revocation actions, counterclaims, and applications for provisional measures) respectively, compared with 31 and 35 during June and December 2024. In 2025, over 450 decisions were issued. When combined with orders handed down this number reaches over 2,500.
       
   2. The four German local divisions of the UPC continue to dominate with 374 of the total 497 cases lodged between these divisions. Cases at the central division were predominantly being filed in Paris (25 of the total 41 cases filed there). Unsurprisingly, the bulk of the cases filed at the UPC in 2025 (429 of 762 cases) were infringement or counterclaims for infringement. Interestingly, some 392 Protective Letters were lodged at the UPC in 2025 with a particular spike occurring in the month of September 2025.
       
   3. Defendants to infringement actions are predominantly located in Germany, Netherlands, France and Italy. A significant number of infringement actions have however been commenced against companies domiciled in the US, UK and China.
       
   4. UPC cases are still being dominated by cases involving Standard Essential Patents. Of the 273 patents involved in infringement and revocation actions, 105 had a primary categorisation of electricity.
       
2. Increased judge numbers (including technical judges) - a significant number of part-time legally qualified judges left their national position to work full time for the UPC. Further recruitment is also expected. There has also been an increase in the number of technically qualified judges and greater involvement of these judges at the interim hearing and during provisional measures. This may be expected to increase the capacity of the UPC to hear more cases. 
    
3. UPC emphasises speed of 1^st instance cases – The UPC continues to emphasise that one of its greatest strengths is the speed and reliability of receiving a first instance decision according to the timelines proposed by the UPC. 
    
4. UPC case law developments – as with the previous edition, the UPC has provided a summary of key decisions from across the year, grouped by themes (see pages 44-55). First instance cases of interest from 2025 include those addressing long arm jurisdiction, assessment of inventive step, provisional measures, and infringement by equivalence. Additional case law from the Court of Appeal is set out at pages 58-75. Cases of interest from the Court of Appeal include decisions on appeals relating to provisional measures and inventive step. 
    
5. English language dominates – English has become the predominant language and was used in 58% of all cases filed before the various divisions of the Court of First Instance, compared to 42% at the end of 2023.