2025-10-02 - LD Mannheim - Hurom v. NUC Electronics et al. - UPC_CFI_159/2024

The Mannheim Local Division decided the part of an infringement action that it had separated pending the ECJ's ruling in BSH Hausgeräte, concerning the Polish, Spanish, Turkish and UK national parts of a European bundle patent. It held that the UPC has international jurisdiction over national parts validated in EU states outside the UPCA and in third states under Art. 71b(1) with Art. 4(1) Brussels Ia, that Art. 34 UPCA does not confine the Court's jurisdiction to the national parts of its own member states, and that the decision of Poland and Spain not to join the UPC does not give them exclusive jurisdiction over their national parts. Infringement of each foreign national part is governed by that state's substantive law under Art. 8(1) Rome II, while whether a fact counts as undisputed is governed by the lex fori, so R. 171.2 RoP applies to shipments into Poland, Spain and the United Kingdom. On the content of that foreign law the panel held that a court expert need not be appointed as a matter of course: the claimant must plead the relevant national provisions, and it is then for the defendant to identify specific points that would produce a different result. The information order was granted in full on the national provisions relied on, reinforced by Art. 67(1) and Art. 68(3)(a),(b) UPCA with R. 191 RoP as procedural rights, with the names of non-commercial customers reserved to an impartial auditor.