Applicant *** (CoA, 26 January 2026)

Date	26 January 2026
Court	CoA
Division	Luxembourg (LU)
Type of action	Petition for review of Registrar's decision
Registry reference	N/AN/AN/A
Parties	Applicant ***

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

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Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By a decision of 26 January 2026, the President of the Court of Appeal dismissed a European Patent Attorney’s petition for review of the Registrar’s decision of 15 September 2025 refusing to enter him on the list of UPC representatives. The request relied on a 1989 course certificate falling within the transitional regime of Rule 12.1 of the EPLC Rules. The decision holds that the one-year transitional period is not discriminatory: once it has expired, the courses listed in Rule 12.1 no longer support registration.

Question

Is the one-year period in Rule 12.1 of the EPLC Rules discriminatory, and can a late request based on a transitional course succeed?

Decision

The period ran from the entry into force of the Agreement on 1 June 2023 and expired on 3 June 2024 (paragraph 11). It is irrelevant that the UPCA has not entered into force in all signatory states (paragraph 12). As a transitional exception, Rule 12 cannot be extended beyond its wording (paragraphs 13 and 14). A late request is admissible, as there is no filing deadline, but unfounded where it relies on a Rule 12.1 course (paragraphs 15 and 16). No discrimination is established (paragraph 17). The applicant may still obtain the European Patent Litigation Certificate or a diploma under Rule 11 (paragraph 19).

Key points for practice

Since 3 June 2024, a European Patent Attorney can no longer rely on the transitional courses in Rule 12.1 of the EPLC Rules to be registered as a representative.
The remaining routes are the European Patent Litigation Certificate or a recognised diploma under Rule 11.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 48(2)
Rules of Procedure: Rule 286.2
European Patent Convention: Art. 134
Rules on the European Patent Litigation Certificate (EPLC Rules): Rules 2, 8.1, 11, 12.1, 13, 14 and 19

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.

Going further

Lexicon: UPC Court of Appeal.

Dhenne Avocats blog: UPC Appeals: What the Numbers Show.

Source and translations

Official source: Unified Patent Court registry link recorded in the record
Original language: not recorded
Translation available: no translation recorded the firm’s French record is a summary, not a translation
Date checked: not recorded

Only the official text is authoritative. A machine translation is never presented as official, republishing a third-party document requires a verified basis in rights, and a link to the source is preferred.

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Proceedings

No case number recorded in this record.

Parties

claimantApplicant ***11 decisions in the corpus Follow this party

Exact name as it appears in the record, group affiliation only where sourced and dated.

Decisions in the same proceedings and documented appeals

No other decision in the corpus bears the same case number, and no appeal is documented in the corpus to date.

What the record states

Nature of the act: Petition for review of Registrar's decision
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): Le recours est rejeté : le délai transitoire d'un an de la règle 12.1 des règles EPLC, expiré le 3 juin 2024, n'est pas discriminatoire et une demande tardive fondée sur une formation transitoire est mal fondée.
Appeal: Decision of the Court of Appeal.
Instance: Court of Appeal decision.

Scope: Dhenne Avocats corpus. Registry-based links are marked “official number”; links derived from the analyses are marked as such. An erroneous link can be withdrawn without deleting any record.

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