Cretes v Hyler (CFI, 7 October 2025)

Date	7 October 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Brussels (BE) Local Division
Type of action	Infringement Action
Case number(s)	UPC_CFI_216/2024
Registry reference	UPC_CFI_216/2024
Parties	Cretes NV v. Hyler BV

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

In a decision of 7 October 2025, given in infringement action UPC_CFI_216/2024 and counterclaim for revocation UPC_CFI_556/2024 between Cretes and Hyler (patents EP 3 993 602 and EP 4 284 152), the Brussels Local Division confirmed the parties’ settlement, closed both proceedings, ordered that the agreement remain entirely confidential and recorded their agreement on costs. It nonetheless limited the refund of court fees to EUR 2,000 per party, rather than the EUR 4,400 sought, taking account of fees that were due but unpaid.

Question

After a settlement, is the refund of court fees under Rule 370.9(c) calculated on the amounts actually paid only, or must fees that were due but remained unpaid be taken into account?

Decision

The division took the unpaid fees into account. Its order of 24 April 2025 (Rule 105.5) was clear: the EUR 4,000 still owed by each party was payable on 1 September 2025 only if no settlement was reached, and would be taken into account in any refund if the parties settled. That pragmatic deferral, which supported mediation, is not prohibited by the Rules of Procedure. As Rule 370.9(c) refers to the party « liable » for the fees, the sums owed are set off against the refund of the EUR 11,000 paid: EUR 4,400 less EUR 2,400, that is EUR 2,000 per party. Alternatively, Rule 370.9(e) allows the refund to be reduced in view of the stage of the proceedings and the parties’ conduct.

Key points for practice

Parties that settle after the judge has deferred payment of fees should expect the unpaid fees to be set off against the refund.
A settlement may be confirmed with its entire content kept confidential (Rule 365.2).

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 73(1)
Rules of Procedure: Rules 11.2, 105.5, 360.1, 365 and 370.9(c) and (e)

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: Patent infringement action.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: Pleading the Long Arm: What a UPC Statement of Claim Must Carry Beyond Jurisdiction (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_CFI_216/2024 official number

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Parties

claimantCretes NV4 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
defendantHyler BV3 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: Infringement Action
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La transaction est confirmée et les deux procédures closes, avec confidentialité de l'accord. Le remboursement des taxes est limité à 2 000 euros par partie, les taxes dues mais impayées s'imputant sur le remboursement.
Appeal: No appeal documented in the corpus, this does not mean that no appeal was lodged.
Instance: First-instance decision, whether it has become final is not recorded.

Patents mentioned

EP 3 993 602 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent
EP 4 284 152 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

Hyler v Cretes (CFI, 7 October 2025) cites this 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.

Patents and standards

Publication	Role in the dispute	Family	Standard and declaration	Pool	Sources
`EP 3 993 602`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 2 other decision(s): CRETES v HYLER (CFI, 20 February 2025) · Cretes v Hyler (CFI, 25 October 2024)	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet links not checked mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis
`EP 4 284 152`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 2 other decision(s): CRETES v HYLER (CFI, 20 February 2025) · Cretes v Hyler (CFI, 25 October 2024)	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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