Malikie Innovations v Discord (CFI, 29 July 2025)

Date	29 July 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Mannheim (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Application Rop 362
Registry reference	App_31764/2025 · ORD_33792/2025
Parties	Discord Netherlands B.V., Discord Inc.

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 29 July 2025 (UPC_CFI_79/2025, App_31764/2025), the Mannheim Local Division (Judges Tochtermann, presiding, Böttcher, judge-rapporteur, and Rinkinen) dismissed the application by Discord Inc. and Discord Netherlands under Rules 361 and 362 RoP for a declaration that Malikie Innovations’ infringement action (EP 3 716 655) was manifestly bound to fail for Germany. The defendants relied on the absence of a representative registered with the German Patent and Trade Mark Office, required by section 25(1) of the German Patent Act for a proprietor established abroad.

Question

Does the obligation to appoint a domestic representative under section 25 of the German Patent Act condition the admissibility of a UPC action for the German part of the patent?

Decision

No. The provision is a national procedural rule, not a substantive requirement for standing. Under the lex fori principle it does not govern proceedings before other courts, and the UPC has its own exhaustive procedural law (Article 24(1)(e) UPCA). It serves the German bifurcated system, in which a nullity action must be capable of swift service, whereas before the UPC the defendant can file a counterclaim for revocation. Neither Article 83(1) UPCA nor Article 47 of the Charter leads to a different result, special circumstances, not shown here, being reserved. In any event the defect could be cured, which rules out dismissal at this stage. The claimant may remedy it in its reply.

Key points for practice

Formal requirements of national patent law concerning foreign proprietors do not found an admissibility objection before the UPC, at least where no separate national nullity action is contemplated.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court: Art. 24(1)(e) and (2)(a), and Art. 83(1)
Rules of Procedure: Rules 331.1, 334(f), 361 and 362

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: Written procedure (UPC), Court fees and costs (UPC).

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

No case number recorded in this record.

Parties

claimantDiscord Netherlands B.V.2 decisions in the corpus Follow this party
claimantDiscord Inc.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: Application Rop 362
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La demande fondée sur les règles 361 et 362 est rejetée : l'article 25 de la loi allemande sur les brevets, règle de procédure nationale, ne s'applique pas devant la JUB.
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 3 716 655 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 3 716 655`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 2 other decision(s): Malikie Innovations v Discord (CFI, 21 July 2025) · Malikie Innovations v Discord (CFI, 19 May 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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