Context:
- Patentees who file cases with the Unified Patent Court’s (UPC) Munich Local Division (LD) have so far been out of luck if those were assigned to the second panel:
- Yesterday we reported on four judgments (three of them in parallel Network System Technologies v. Qualcomm & Samsung cases, one in ParTec v. NVIDIA) by the second panel (March 11, 2026 ip fray article).
- Three months ago we reported on the same panel’s decision to throw out a GDX-Bio patent asserted against Myriad (December 19, 2025 ip fray article). We listened to the court’s introductory explanations at the related trial, and the panel was inclined to find the patent not only invalid but also not infringed. Infringement was, however, not reached in the formal decision.
- Last summer, the same panel’s Brita v. Aquashield decision went overwhelmingly against the patentee, given that the only remedy amounted to the requirement to put a warning notice on third-party filters (August 22, 2025 ip fray article).
- An Advanced Standard Communication LLC v. Xiaomi case before the same panel has not been adjudicated yet, but the dismissal (as untimely) of 5G-specific infringement allegations does not bode well for the plaintiff (October 30, 2025 ip fray article).
- The only injunction that a patent holder has won from that panel so far was not a patent injunction, but Nokia’s anti-antisuit injunction (AASI) against payment terminal maker SUNMI (February 20, 2025 ip fray article).
- Delays due to the Munich LD’s enormous popularity are a known problem. In a dispute between Dolby and Roku, a case pending before the second panel was practically not moving forward (August 29, 2025 ip fray article), and a settlement was ultimately triggered by other courts.
- By contrast, our statistics show approximately a 70% win rate for cases decided by the first panel, also with respect to applications for provisional measures (preliminary injunctions; PIs).
The Munich LD’s popularity was not earned by its second panel, but by the reputation and consistent decision-making style of its first panel. The outcomes before the second panel, and also the way they are arrived at (as discussed further below), are now a threat to the Munich LD’s popularity.
Caveat: sample size
Due to numerous pretrial settlements, the numbers of actual decisions are small and do not yet constitute a statistically reliable sample. But the contrast between the two Munich panels is now so stark that it is increasingly hard to explain away with sample size. Furthermore, the picture could change going forward as Judge Dr. Georg Werner joined the panel (October 10, 2025 ip fray article).
Issues identified
Based on our case monitoring and discussions with counsel, we do not see any strong signs that the second panel was hostile to patentees. Its claim constructions are definitely on the rather restrictive side, but it would be wrong, or at least too early, to describe the panel as a “patent lawsuit death squad” for that reason alone.
There obviously are no reasons to doubt that panel’s expertise.
But the bottom-line effect is very negative. We have identified (as discussed further below) case management-specific explanations for the conspicuous lack of success of patentees before that panel. We believe that standard-essential patent (SEP) holders may be less frequently impacted by those issues than non-SEP owners, but the latter group represents the majority of plaintiffs.
Impact
Until the skies clear up, patentees will gain considerably less leverage in settlement negotiations from cases pending before the second panel in Munich than other UPC panels (even a referral of an infringement case to the Central Division (CD), if a revocation was brought there, might be preferable) or the Munich I Regional Court, and counsel representing parties there will have to consider strategic alternatives (as Dolby’s counsel apparently did when they faced enormous delays against Roku).
Recommendations
At minimum, you must analyze your complaint (before filing it with the Munich LD) in light of what went wrong in other cases that were assigned to the second panel. Take into consideration what we write further below about the impact of the panel’s case management on your prospects to succeed.
In addition, and unless the second panel’s case management is more aligned with that of other UPC panels, we have no choice but to strongly recommend giving consideration to other venues:
- Among national courts, the choice is so obvious that there is no need to name it in front of this professional audience.
- Among UPC LDs,
- all other German LDs are presently more predictable than Munich with its assignment-related risk;
- the only non-German but German-speaking venue, the Vienna LD, has a lot of potential in our view (one plaintiff won an injunction, and another had a claim construction problem because German was the language of the patent and the native tongue of three of the four judges, so they could not interpret one German claim term as broadly as one might have construed the English translation: February 24, 2026 ip fray article);
- the Hague LD is the most popular one outside of Germany;
- the Nordic-Baltic Regional Divisional is particularly interesting if one sees value in expert witness cross-examinations; and
- other divisions are also worth considering.
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