Context: Since the Unified Patent Court (UPC) opened its doors in June 2023, Apple has settled two disputes that involved UPC cases:
- About four months ago, Ona Patents withdrew its UPC case against Apple, the only plausible explanation being a settlement (September 6, 2025 ip fray article). Ona Patents, backed by legendary patent monetizer Erich Spangenberg’s SIM IP, a company whose shareholders include Donald Trump Jr. Ona sued Apple in the UPC and in German national court over location-positioning techniques. Its parallel campaign against Google suffered a setback this month, but it’s far from over (January 16, 2026 ip fray article).
- Last month, a consensual withdrawal of a Headwater Research case against Apple (Section 6 of our December 14, 2025 UPC Roundup) similarly left no plausible explanation other than a settlement. In that case, it was about networking patents.
- No other UPC cases against Apple were known.
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Court and counsel
Panel: Presiding Judge Prof. Peter Tochtermann, Judge Tobias Sender, and Judge Stefan Johansson (based in Stockholm, Sweden, and primarily the Presiding Judge of the UPC’s Nordic-Baltic Regional Division (NBRD)).
Counsel for EyesMatch: Hoffmann Eitle (lead counsel: Holger Stratmann). In the early 2010s, Hoffmann Eitle was part of Apple’s outside legal team in the German part of its dispute with Samsung. In the U.S., EyesMatch is regularly represented by Tensegrity Law Group (founder: Matt Powers).
Counsel for Apple: Hoyng Rokh Monegier’s (ip fray firm profile) Klaus Haft. His history with Apple is even more varied. When he was Nokia’s lead counsel in many German cases, he sued Apple over a variety of patents first in the early 2010s and again in the mid 2010s. But he has historically defended semiconductor companies like Intel against patent infringement complaints, and when Qualcomm enforced patents against Apple, particularly against iPhones that came with Intel baseband chips, Mr. Haft defended Apple. He has since become involved with more cases on Apple’s behalf.