Case numbers in Paris fell by a third in 2025
In 2025,108 patent cases were pending at the French patent court in Paris. These included many commercially significant pharmaceutical cases. But the reporting on these cases has to some extent obscured what the court has now published in black and white — the number of new cases filed has fallen dramatically.
12 June 2026 by Christina Schulze
It is a trend that is gaining momentum in the third year following the launch of the UPC. Cases at the key national patent courts within the UPC area are falling. This decline is particularly pronounced in Paris. In 2025, plaintiffs filed only 101 new cases. Compared to the previous year, this is a decrease of one third.
Simultaneously, parties settled 145 cases. For the judges of the 3rd Chamber of the Judicial Court Paris, this also represents a shift in their work. Patent infringement proceedings only make up a small proportion anyway — recently only 15% of ongoing cases, albeit some of the most extensive.
Cases in Paris first began to fall in 2024 after having risen continuously in the previous four years. This success was achieved through more efficient and faster litigation and a greater dedication to IP rights overall. Now, many well-known French patent lawyers as well as major cases have moved to the UPC. According to a case search conducted by JUVE Patent, the UPC received 239 new infringement cases in 2025.
Munich and UK stand alone
A total of 108 cases were pending in Paris at the end of 2025. That is still twice as many as at Mannheim Regional Court. The courts in Düsseldorf and Mannheim have been experiencing a decline in cases for three years. Alone Munich and the UK courts are seeing a different development. The UK High Court had stable figures in 2023 and 2024 and has recently seen an increase. However, the extensive disputes regarding interim licences and ASIs have dominated perceptions.
The 7th and 21st Civil Chambers of Munich Regional Court broke the threshold of over 300 cases in 2025, a record for the court. Much attention surrounded its new FRAND case law, which the court’s 27th Civil Chamber developed in the first ex parte anti-interim-licence injunction in InterDigital vs Amazon, as well as the court’s decision in Samsung vs ZTE. In its recent judgments in Nokia vs Acer and Asus and Wilus vs Asus, the panel around presiding judge Oliver Schön further clarified the rules.
In Paris, meanwhile, there are no signs that the court will have the opportunity to get involved in FRAND jurisprudence. The last major case from the telecommunications sector was Intellectual Ventures vs various telecommunications companies. Most recently, the Cour de Cassation dismissed an appeal against the Court of Appeal judgment.
