Context: In October, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) announced that it had appointed Judge Dr. Georg Werner as a legally qualified judge at the Munich Local Division (LD) (October 10, 2025 ip fray article). Judge Dr. Werner was previously a judge at the Landgericht München I (Munich I Regional Court), and began working at the UPC Munich LD this month. During an OxFirst event on Tuesday, Presiding Judge Dr. Oliver Schoen (“Schön” in German) of the Munich I Regional Court’s 7th Civil Chamber revealed that the new Presiding Judge over the 21st Civil Chamber (the other Munich patent division) has been chosen and has a “patent-positive approach” (January 13, 2026 ip fray article). Based on this, ip fray predicted that Judge Dr. Werner’s replacement would be Judge Dr. Hubertus Schacht, who is presently sitting by designation on the regional appeals court, the Oberlandesgericht München (Munich Higher Regional Court), and which we have repeatedly mentioned in connection with Onesta v. BMW (a case before the 21st Civil Chamber: January 13, 2026 ip fray article).
What’s new: A third-party source close to the matter has confirmed to ip fray that Judge Dr. Schacht has been appointed the new interim presiding judge of the Munich I Regional Court’s 21st Civil Chamber, effective February 1, 2026.
Direct impact and wider ramifications: When Judge Dr. Werner’s move was first announced, it confirmed the “brain drain” of high-profile German patent judges to the UPC mentioned during the 2nd Annual LF Dealmakers Europe in London earlier this year (June 25, 2025 ip fray article). During that event, panelists said the UPC had become the “default setting” for EU patent litigation, leaving national systems in a state of “shock”. However, the Munich I Regional Court had a very busy 2025 and remains extremely relevant as a patent enforcement venue. As well as issuing an unprecedented order for imprisonment in a patent infringement case (December 16, 2025 ip fray article), it granted the world’s first-ever anti-interim-license injunctions (to InterDigital against Amazon: October 2, 2025 ip fray article), and issued the first-ever BSH-based preliminary injunction (PI) to Bayer in over 20 different countries (September 29, 2025 ip fray article). In 2025, it saw a 35% year-on-year increase in infringement cases from 2024 (from 234 to 317), receiving more cases than the entire UPC (January 2, 2026 ip fray article).