The share of Chinese and Hong Kong-based defendants in new infringement and preliminary injunction (PI) proceedings at the UPC has risen sharply since the court’s inception. According to UPClytics, cases with at least one defendant whose ultimate parent is headquartered in mainland China or Hong Kong represented 18% of new UPC infringement and PI filings in 2024 (36 of 196), before roughly doubling to 36% in 2025 (103 of 290).
In 2026, the share has held broadly steady, staying at 33% up until October 1 (59 of 178). The trajectory is consistent with the court’s own 2025 annual report, which identified the growing involvement of Chinese parties as a notable feature of the UPC’s second full year of operation. The pattern carries particular weight in relation to PI practice. Of 23 PI applications against such defendants decided as of October 15, 2026, the court granted relief, in full or in part, in 14, accounting for 61%.
A shifting defendant profile
Where early filings predominantly involved disputes between European and U.S.-headquartered parties, Chinese consumer-electronics, telecommunications and connected-device manufacturers have appeared with growing frequency over the past 18 months. The findings also arrive against the backdrop of an ongoing debate concerning the geographic distribution of UPC cases, with Germany-based divisions still handling the majority of infringement actions, albeit a declining one (May 15, 2026 ip fray article).
Stays pending EPO oppositions: 13 of 25 refused
A further data set speaks about the willingness of divisions to stay proceedings pending the outcome of parallel European Patent Office (EPO) opposition proceedings. Of 25 decided requests identified, 13 were refused. Of the nine that were granted, eight came with the agreement of both parties. Absent party consensus, UPC divisions remain reluctant to stay proceedings pending EPO outcomes.
The Hague Local Division’s (LD) order in Koninklijke KPN N.V. v. Oleading bears this out and does so in a case with a Chinese defendant. The division stayed KPN’s infringement action against OPPO, whose ultimate parent, Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications, is headquartered in China, in a dispute over EP2387844. By the time of the order, the patent had been revoked by an EPO Technical Board of Appeal, with KPN’s petition for review pending before the Enlarged Board of Appeal. The decisive feature, however, was consensus rather than the merits, as the court acted on a joint request from both parties (item 3 of June 8, 2026 UPC roundup), suspending the proceedings until the EPO proceedings reach a final outcome.
Where a party resists, the court tends to refuse, even outside the Chinese-defendant context. On October 16, 2026, the Court of Appeal (CoA) dismissed an application to stay appeal proceedings in Dainese v. Alpinestars (PDF), a dispute between Italian and Spanish parties with no Chinese or Hong Kong connection. The respondents had asked the court to pause the appeal until the EPO’s Board of Appeal issued its written decision on the validity of the patent in suit, EP4072364, then the subject of parallel opposition-appeal proceedings. By the time the CoA ruled, the Board of Appeal had already announced orally that it would maintain the patent in amended form, and the court declined to stay.
The order is instructive on procedural and substantive levels.
Procedurally, the court held the stay application inadmissible because it had not been signed by the respondents’ authorized representatives, as Rule 4.1 of the Rules of Procedure requires.
On the merits, and in the alternative, it reaffirmed the court’s settled starting point that “as a general principle, the court will not stay proceedings,” noting that even where a rapid EPO decision can be expected, a stay remains discretionary and turns on the balance of interests.
With the EPO outcome already known and the respondents retaining some 40 days to address it in their Statement of Response, the court found that a stay would offer no decisive procedural advantage. The application had been opposed by Dainese (appellant) throughout, in contrast to the consensual stays that the UPClytics figures show are the norm when a pause is granted.