2026-09-15 - LD Munich - DivX v. Netflix - UPC_CFI_465/2025

Was ist diese UPC-Entscheidung?

Zusammenfassung: The Munich Local Division (Panel 2) upheld EP 4 213 033 as granted against a counterclaim for revocation and found the Netflix streaming software to indirectly infringe the claimed client-side playback method under Art. 26(1) UPCA. On validity the panel applied the Court of Appeal's added-matter test (Abbott v Sibio: a feature of an embodiment may be omitted where it is not objectively necessary for the purpose of the claimed feature), held the primary reference not to disclose a 'media sequence' at all, and rejected every inventive-step attack for want of a motivation to arrive at a request queue that is flushed on a user instruction, expressly departing from the EPO Opposition Division's preliminary opinion on that point. On infringement the panel held that non-physical software is a 'means' under Art. 26(1) UPCA, that the client is the device together with the software so a queue maintained by the browser still counts, and that a claimant who has analysed one software variant and asserts the others are identical in the relevant functions has pleaded sufficiently unless the defendant contests specific differences. On remedies the panel held that means under Art. 26 UPCA are 'infringing products' for the information claim under Art. 67(1) UPCA, that no confidentiality restriction attaches to information ordered under Art. 67 UPCA and R. 191 RoP without an R. 262A RoP application, that penalty payments may be framed as minimum amounts per day, and that no enforcement security was warranted because the defendants' evidence of the claimant's finances was insufficient and the patent expires within eighteen months. The Court also admitted the EPO Opposition Division's preliminary opinion under R. 36 RoP so that Office and Court decide on the same basis.

Quelle und Fundstellen

Quelle: UPC Website

Aktenzeichen: UPC_CFI_465/2025