InterDigital VC Holdings v The Walt Disney Company (CFI, 2 May 2025)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

On an application by the Disney companies, defendants in InterDigital VC Holdings’ infringement action on EP 2 465 265 (video coding) before the Mannheim Local Division (UPC_CFI_86/2025), the President of the Court of First Instance, Florence Butin, changed the language of the proceedings from German to English, the language in which the patent was granted, over the claimant’s objection. The order applies the Court of Appeal’s criteria and confirms that significant inconvenience to the defendant is enough.

Question

Under Article 49(5) UPCA, must a defendant show a disproportionate disadvantage to obtain a change to the language in which the patent was granted?

Decision

No. Applying the Court of Appeal’s criteria (the language commonly used in the technical field, the parties’ position, working language and coordination needs), the President recalled that where the balance is even the defendant’s position prevails, since the claimant chose the forum and the timing, and that significant inconvenience suffices. English is the usual language of video coding, as the many untranslated exhibits show. The claimant is a US company and the defendants, based in the United States, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom, work in English. The representatives’ language skills, the judges’ language, the defendants’ resources and parallel national proceedings are irrelevant.

Key points for practice

• In technology disputes where the exhibits are in English and the parties are not German-speaking, a change to English is granted without proof of a disproportionate disadvantage.
• Practical point: a claimant’s choice of German before a German division is not secure against international defendants working in English.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Art. 49(5)

Rules of Procedure

Rules 14.1 and 323

Case law cited

Curio Bioscience v 10x Genomics, Court of Appeal, 17 April 2024, Court of Appeal, 18 September 2024 (UPC_CoA_354/2024), Court of Appeal, UPC_CoA_207/2024, Düsseldorf Local Division, 28 May 2024 (UPC_CFI_26/2024)

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.