Context: The Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) first standard-essential patent (SEP) injunction was an outlier because there was no FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) defense on the table. The Munich Local Division (LD) granted it to Philips against Belkin over a Qi (wireless charging) patent (September 13, 2024 ip fray article). It was largely upheld on appeal (October 3, 2025 ip fray article). The reason for the absence of a FRAND defense was that Qi is not the only wireless charging option for devices, much less the only charging method, which weighs against a theory of such a patent conferring market power upon its holder.
What’s new: Yesterday (February 11, 2026), the Munich LD held an oral hearing (trial) in another Philips v. Belkin case. The patent-in-suit is EP2867997 (“Wireless inductive power transfer”), which already led to the previous injunction, but (as explained below) Philips is tackling new products, including some that implement Apple’s proprietary MagSafe wireless charging technology, and Belkin did raise a FRAND defense this time. As some of the issues had been discussed before and the UPC’s Court of Appeal (CoA) previously upheld this patent (there was no revocation counterclaim this time), the panel ruled from the bench. This is the first known bench ruling by the UPC in main proceedings (as opposed to provisional measures, where it is not unheard of) and, therefore, also the first UPC bench ruling in a SEP case. Munich is now the SEP bench ruling town: the Munich I Regional Court has recently decided a few SEP cases at the end of a trial, most recently Broadcom v. Renault (February 10, 2026 ip fray article). It’s also the first UPC ruling, at least of this kind, to come with a handwritten clarification:
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Court and counsel
Panel (as in the earlier Philips v. Belkin litigation over the same patent): Presiding Judge Dr. Matthias Zigann, Judge-rapporteur Tobias Pichlmaier, Judge Edger Brinkman (The Hague) and Technically Qualified Judge Dr. Anders Hansson (Stockholm).
This injunction is a noteworthy win for
- Bardehle Pagenberg’s Dr. Tilman Mueller, Dr. Tobias Wuttke, Nobuchika Mamine, and Dr. Ronja Schregle;
- Eisenfuehr Speiser’s Dr. Désirée Heintz and Dr. Christoph Fehn; and
- Philips in-house counsel Arie Tol and Edwin Montie.
Bardehle Pagenberg has an ip fray firm profile with numerous UPC and SEP achievements (we will add this one to the relevant lists). Dr. Mueller (not to be confused for Prof. Tilman Mueller-Stoy) is also on the winning track in a Dolby v. Beko & Arçelik case in the Dusseldorf LD (February 4, 2026 ip fray article) and filed some new InterDigital cases against TCL and Hisense this week (February 10, 2026 ip fray article).
The defendants (and now likely appellants) were represented in the previous case by DLA Piper’s Dr. Philipp Cepl, Dr. Constanze Krenz, Dr. Benedikt Hammerschmid and Dr. Carl Prior. Most or all of them were involved again, as was Julia Pehe.