2026-08-17 - LD Brussels - Barco v. Yealink Network Technology - UPC_CFI_806/2025

1. Granting an application to change or amend the case cannot be allowed if the amendment could have been foreseen from the outset of the proceedings. Granting such an application later in the proceedings would mean allowing the applicant to change its strategy. 2. That the applicant of an application to change or amend the case (in particular, requesting to allow new auxiliary requests to align them with proceedings before the EPO) may have to initiate new UPC proceedings, taking into consideration the auxiliary requests introduced before the Opposition Division or Board of Appeal of the EPO but not allowed by the Court (UPC), might indeed be the case. The fact that the applicant itself did not abide by the principles of procedural efficiency cannot be invoked by that same applicant as a reason to allow to change or amend the case, taking into consideration the stage of the proceedings. 3. The applicant of an application to change or amend the case (in particular requesting to allow new auxiliary requests in the proceedings) must convince the Court of the “connection” between the changes to be made in the auxiliary requests and the specific arguments of the Defendant regarding the invalidity of the Patent.

The Brussels Local Division panel refused a patentee leave under R. 263 RoP and R. 30.2 RoP to introduce a sixth auxiliary request that it had first filed in parallel EPO opposition proceedings after the Opposition Division found the granted claim to lack inventive step. The Court held that R. 263.1 RoP requires an explanation why the amendment was not in the original pleading and that none was given, since the patentee had never asserted the two granted claims the new request combines; that R. 263.2(a) RoP was not satisfied because a diligent patentee coordinates its EPO and UPC strategies in advance and, in any event, seven weeks passed before the application was filed; and that R. 263.2(b) RoP was not satisfied because admitting a new request with the interim conference and oral hearing already fixed would force the defendants to assess validity and non-infringement of claims never in issue. It added that an amendment foreseeable from the outset amounts to a change of strategy, which cannot be allowed merely to align the two fora, and that a patentee cannot invoke its own departure from procedural efficiency as the reason to be relieved of it. Independently, the request failed under R. 30 RoP: the counterclaimant defines the scope of the revocation proceedings, so an auxiliary request built on claims the counterclaim does not attack is not a defence to it, and the patentee showed no connection between the amendment and the invalidity arguments actually raised. The defendants' conditional applications, including a stay under R. 295(a) and R. 295(m) RoP pending the EPO decision, fell away with the refusal, and leave to appeal was granted under R. 220.2 RoP.