Bodycap v European Patent Office (EPO) (CoA, 16 September 2025)

Date	16 September 2025
Court	CoA
Division	Luxembourg (LU)
Type of action	Action against the decision of the EPO (RoP97)
Case number(s)	UPC_CoA_796/2025
Registry reference	APL_35508/2025 · UPC_CoA_796/2025
Parties	Bodycap, Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS), Université de Rennes v. European Patent Office (EPO)

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

Dhenne Avocats represents claimants and defendants in European patent disputes before the Unified Patent Court, including the Paris divisions.

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Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By an order of 16 September 2025 (UPC_CoA_796/2025), the standing judge of the Court of Appeal dismissed the appeal of Bodycap, CNRS and Université de Rennes against the order of the Milan Central Division of 6 August 2025, which had upheld the EPO’s refusal of their request for unitary effect for EP 3 691 518. The EPO had invited the co-proprietors to correct a discrepancy between the name and address of the third co-proprietor and those in the register. The reply arrived after the one-month period had expired. The order confirms that this time limit cannot be cured.

Question

In a Rule 97 action against a refusal of unitary effect, may the EPO grant interlocutory revision, and can the one-month period under Rule 7(3) of the Rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection be excused?

Decision

No on both counts. The appeal is admissible (paragraph 12). Rule 85(2) excludes interlocutory revision under Rule 91 in the accelerated Rule 97 procedure (paragraphs 16 to 19). The one-month period under Rule 7(3) cannot be extended, failure to comply requires refusal of the request, and Rule 22(6) excludes it from re-establishment of rights (paragraphs 20 and 21). Since the appellants disputed neither the discrepancy nor the delay, the refusal stands (paragraphs 22 to 24), each party bears its own costs (paragraph 25).

Key points for practice

The Rule 7(3) correction period is mandatory: an error in a co-proprietor’s name or address that is not corrected in time costs the unitary effect.
In a Rule 97 action, the UPC cannot override the exclusion of re-establishment of rights laid down in the Rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 66
Rules of Procedure: Rules 85(2), 91, 97 and 98
Regulation (EU) No 1257/2012: Art. 9(1)(g)
Rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection: Rules 5(2), 6, 7(3) and 22(6)

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, Unitary patent.

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

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: Four Questions That Decide a UPC Market Entry (Kluwer Patent Blog).

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, related decisions, appeals, parties and patents as recorded in the registry and in the Dhenne Avocats corpus. Each link states its source.

Proceedings

UPC_CoA_796/2025 official number

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Parties

claimantBodycap2 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
claimantCentre National de la Recherche Scientifique (CNRS)Follow this party
claimantUniversité de Rennes2 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendantEuropean Patent Office (EPO)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: Action against the decision of the EPO (RoP97)
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La révision préjudicielle est exclue dans le recours de la règle 97, et le délai d'un mois de la règle 7(3) du règlement relatif à la protection unitaire, impératif et exclu de la restitutio in integrum, justifie le refus de l'effet unitaire.
Appeal: Decision of the Court of Appeal.
Instance: Court of Appeal decision.

Patents mentioned

EP 3 691 518 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

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.

Patents and standards

Publication	Role in the dispute	Family	Standard and declaration	Pool	Sources
`EP 3 691 518`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 1 other decision(s): Bodycap v EPO (CFI, 6 August 2025)	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet links not checked mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis

The statuses “asserted in litigation”, “declared essential”, “listed by a pool” and “essentiality examined by a court” are distinct and may coexist. Validity, infringement and technical essentiality are different questions. Scope: patents cited in the decisions of the Dhenne Avocats corpus, with no essentiality score or prediction.

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