Hewlett-Packard Development v Lama France (CFI, 10 January 2025)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By order of 10 January 2025 (UPC_CFI_358/2023), the Paris Local Division, on cross-applications for costs by Hewlett-Packard Development Company and Lama France following the decision on the merits of 13 November 2024, refused to raise the ceiling on representation costs by 50% and found that each party owes the other EUR 112,000 in representation costs and EUR 7,500 in court fees.

Question

Do the number of patents, the alleged complexity of the proceedings, pre-action settlement efforts or SME status justify raising the ceiling on recoverable representation costs?

Decision

The ceiling set by the Administrative Committee’s decision of 24 April 2023 is only a safety net and applies to each instance regardless of the number of parties, claims or patents. For a value in dispute of EUR 1,000,000 it is EUR 112,000. Raising it, which is reserved for limited situations such as particular complexity or the use of several languages, was not justified: the proceedings were not of particular technical complexity, costs of pre-action settlement efforts are not covered and Lama’s unsuccessful settlement offer during the proceedings is irrelevant.

Applying the equal split decided on 13 November 2024, the panel found that each party owes the other EUR 112,000 for representation and EUR 7,500 out of the EUR 15,000 in fees paid by each. An appeal lies under the conditions of Rule 220.2 RoP.

Key points for practice

• Practical point: the ceiling applies per instance, not per patent, an application to raise it must show particular complexity, multiple languages or financial imbalance, not merely the number of patents.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Arts 69 and 70

Rules of Procedure

Rules 151, 152 and 220.2

Administrative Committee decision of 24 April 2023

scale of ceilings for recoverable costs, Arts 1 and 2

Related decisions

• Hewlett-Packard Development v Lama France, 13 November 2024, decision on the merits splitting costs equally.

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.