LD Paris interprets broadly need for “commercial relationship” and “same alleged infringement” in Art 33(1)(b)

Valeo Wiper Systems v Robert Bosch France SAS and others

UPC_CFI_1963/2025, LD Paris, Order of 23 March 2026 ^[1]

This order, a full panel review of a the Judge-Rapporteur’s order rejecting a preliminary objection, adopts a broad interpretation of the requirement in Art 33(1)(b) that an infringement action against multiple defendants at the local division where one defendant has its principal place of business, “may be brought … only where the defendants have a commercial relationship and where the action relates to the same alleged infringement.”

Background

Valeo Wiper Systems sued a number of companies in the Robert Bosch group at the LD Paris for infringement of EP4144599. The defendants included Robert Bosch France SAS, the “anchor defendant” giving the LD Paris jurisdiction under Art 33(1)(b) UPCA, the parent company Robert Bosch GmbH based in Germany, and a number of other subsidiaries based in Serbia, Belgium, and China.

The defendants challenged the jurisdiction of the LD Paris in relation to some of the defendants, arguing that the “commercial relationship” required by Art 33(1)(b) must be assessed in relation to the “anchor defendant”, and that the anchor defendant must have allegedly committed an infringing act with each other defendant. The defendants argued that these cumulative conditions could be satisfied by the parent company Robert Bosch GmbH, making a German local division competent, but could not apply to Robert Bosch France SAS which was itself a subsidiary.

Decision

The LD Paris rejected these arguments. It considered that the requisite commercial link should be assessed flexibly in order to avoid a proliferation of parallel proceedings and the risk of conflicting decisions, and thus that it was sufficient that all the defendants belong to the same group of companies and pursue the same objective. It was not necessary for every other defendant to have a special commercial relationship with the anchor defendant, and there was no basis in the wording of the provision to infer that UPC proceedings must always be brought in the local division corresponding to the parent company.

Moreover, the LD Paris interpreted “the same alleged infringement” to require only an identity of the infringed rights, i.e. the same patent, regardless of whether the allegedly infringing products have different trade names or different forms, provided that it is alleged that the same patent claims are reproduced by each of the disputed products. The LD Paris thus considered it immaterial that not all the defendants are concerned with strictly identical products, provided that these products are from the same range and are identified as infringing the patent belonging to the claimant.

Significance

This ruling rejecting the preliminary objection affirms that patentees have significant flexibility in where to bring an infringement action where infringement is carried out by a group of related companies. It is not necessary to go to a local division in the country where the parent company is based – a local division in a country where a subsidiary is based can also be competent in respect of all the defendants. Indeed related actions under different patents can be brought at different local divisions, and here the claimant had asserted another patent (EP2671766) against the same companies in the Robert Bosch group at the LD Düsseldorf.

[1] https://www.unifiedpatentcourt.org/en/node/182899

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