2026-02-24 - LD Munich - Ueran Technology v. Xiaomi - UPC_CFI_609/2025
- Aktenzeichen:
- UPC_CFI_609/2025
- Datum:
- Spruchkörper:
- Court of First Instance - Munich (DE) Local Division
- Art:
- Order
- Parteien:
- UERAN Technology LLC v. Xiaomi Corporation a.o.
Kernaussage: ENGLISH:
2026-02-24 - LD Munich - Ueran Technology
v.
Xiaomi - UPC_CFI_609/2025
ENGLISH:
1. It follows from Art. 48 UPCA that a party has the fundamental right to freely choose whether it wishes to be represented by a lawyer (authorised to practise before a court of a Contracting Member State) or a European Patent Attorney according to Art. 48 II UPCA or by a team of both, optionally assisted by patent attorneys.
2. Neither Art. 48 UPCA nor Art. 58 UPCA implies that the right to freely choose a representative in proceedings before the UPC and to be represented by this representative in all relevant matters can be restricted with regard to whether the representative has a more legal or a more technical background. Both types of representatives are to be treated equally. As with technically qualified judges, the competence of a patent attorney to represent is not limited to purely technical matters.
notable
The Munich LD addressed an application to amend a confidentiality order in UERAN v Xiaomi. The headnote establishes that Art. 48 UPCA gives parties the fundamental right to freely choose representatives (lawyers or European Patent Attorneys), and neither Art. 48 nor Art. 58 UPCA allows restricting a representative's access based on whether they have a legal or technical background. Patent attorneys, like technically qualified judges, are not limited to purely technical matters. The defendants' request to exclude claimant's patent attorneys from the confidentiality club regarding licence negotiations was therefore rejected. The court also declined to exclude an expert (associated with the prior patent owner) from the confidentiality club, as the expert likely already possessed the information through prior activities — the relevant question was whether there was a legitimate interest in keeping the expert away from information she already had.