UPC CoA heard two jurisdictional appeals from Paris LD (FRAND and long-arm), shows strong inclination in one case

Context:

1. Long-arm jurisdiction is a major topic at the Unified Patent Court (UPC) after last year’s BSH Hausgeräte v. Electrolux ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) and even more so after last week’s preliminary reference to the ECJ by the UPC’s Court of Appeal (CoA) (March 6, 2026 ip fray article).
   • It is a contentious topic in a lawsuit filed by French company KeeeX against OpenAI, Adobe, a tech coalition, and TruePic (August 2, 2025 ip fray article). The Paris Local Division (LD) denied the defendants’ preliminary objection over jurisdiction in general (but also long-arm jurisdiction for multiple non-UPCland countries) despite no defendant being based in France (Section 6 of our November 30, 2025 UPC Roundup). The appellate hearing was scheduled for March 2, 2026 (last week’s Monday) as one of two long-arm appeals on this month’s hearing list (February 6, 2026 ip fray article).
   • The other long-arm appeal on this month’s agenda originates from the Mannheim LD (Fujifilm v. Kodak) and will be heard on the 27th and 30th.
2. FRAND (fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory licensing) is traditionally an affirmative defense to requests for standard-essential patent (SEP) injunctions. Recently, SEP holders enforcing their rights in the UPC have also asked for FRAND determinations:
   • Last fall, licensing firm Sun Patent Trust (SPT) brought a proactive FRAND claim against vivo, asking not only for a holding that its rates were FRAND but, in the event they were not, for a decision on what would in fact be FRAND. The Paris LD declined to grant vivo’s preliminary objection (PO), but allowed an appeal (Section 1.4 of our November 9, 2025 UPC Roundup). The appellate hearing on the PO denial was scheduled for yesterday (March 9, 2026).
   • Shortly after SPT’s FRAND claim against vivo, Ericsson raised one against Chinese smartphone maker Transsion in the Hague LD (November 14, 2025 ip fray article).
   • Ericsson’s Mannheim FRAND claim against payment terminal maker Verifone, however, is limited to a request for a declaration of FRAND compliance (February 20, 2026 ip fray article).

What’s new: We have found out about how the CoA described the issues and, in one case, its preliminary assessment at the March 2 (KeeeX v. OpenAI et al.) and March 9 (Sun Patent Trust v. vivo) hearings: