Pleading the Long Arm: What a UPC Statement of Claim Must Carry Beyond Jurisdiction

Winning the jurisdiction argument in a long-arm case is not the same as having a claim. On 2 June 2026 the UPC Court of Appeal confirmed that the Mannheim Local Division had been right to hear Fujifilm’s infringement claim on the UK designation of its European patent against German Kodak companies, and ordered Kodak to bear the costs of its jurisdictional objection. In the same decision it dismissed Fujifilm’s infringement requests on both designations and ordered Fujifilm to compensate Kodak for any injury caused by the enforcement of the first-instance decisions.1

None of the reasons concerns jurisdiction. On the German designation, a German Kodak company held a right of prior use under German law that covered the modified plates and their distribution, and nothing was alleged against the holding company beyond its control of that subsidiary.2On the UK designation, the plates belonged to a UK company that had not been sued, and the German company had merely arranged their transport on its behalf. Nor had the claimant shown that any Kodak company knew the essential facts which UK law requires, alongside procurement or common design, before a supplier can be liable as a joint tortfeasor.3The long arm reached the United Kingdom. The claim did not.

I argued in these columns in March that jurisdiction and effect must be kept apart, and that KeeeX had made the statement of claim the place where international jurisdiction is won or lost.4Fujifilm v Kodak adds the next lesson. Once the Court accepts an extraterritorial claim, the dispute moves to questions the jurisdictional debate taught claimants to postpone: which company did what, under which law, on which validity track and for which remedy. A statement of claim that does not carry those answers from the outset may produce a judgment on jurisdiction and nothing else.

Five links

A long-arm claim is best treated as a chain, and it holds only as well as its weakest link. The first link is jurisdiction over the defendant and the foreign designation. The second is attribution: the acts performed in each territory, and the entity to which each belongs. The third is the applicable law, which governs infringement, exceptions and secondary liability. The fourth is the validity track, which after Fujifilm v Kodak differs sharply between non-UPC designations in EU Member States or Lugano Convention States and designations elsewhere. The fifth is the remedy: what the Court can order, against whom, and where it can be enforced.

The links serve to prepare the case, and the Rules of Procedure treat them unevenly. Rule 13 requires the facts relied on, with the date and place of each infringement, the evidence available, the remedy and the legal reasons, and KeeeX reads into it the facts that support international jurisdiction.5Other material comes later. A claimant may amend with leave under Rule 263 if it shows, among other things, that reasonable diligence could not have produced the change earlier. Rule 263.3 always allows a claim to be limited, which makes dropping a territory the easiest amendment of all.6Worked through for each defendant and each designation, the links yield an unglamorous schedule that shows, before filing, whether a territory belongs in the claim at all.

The first link, largely settled

Against a defendant domiciled in the UPC territory, the framework is reasonably clear. The UPC has jurisdiction wherever the courts of a participating Member State would have it.7Article 4(1) of the Brussels Ia Regulation then applies, and the domicile supplies the connection with the forum wherever the acts took place.8On that basis the Court of Appeal has held that it may hear infringement of a UK designation and cannot decline jurisdiction in favor of a court of a non-Member State.9

Other routes are narrower. For a defendant domiciled outside the Union, Article 71b(2) is not a ground of jurisdiction in itself. It makes Chapter II applicable regardless of domicile, and the claimant must still invoke one of its rules, usually Article 7(2) or Article 8(1).10In KeeeX, the Court of Appeal confined Article 7(2) to damage in the UPC territory. It also found the statement of claim silent on the other national parts and on the conditions of Article 71b(3), namely property of the defendant, of more than negligible value, in a participating Member State sufficiently connected with the dispute, and refused to let later exhibits repair it.11Whether damage “outside the Union” covers infringement of other national parts was expressly left open.12Whether an intermediary domiciled in a UPC State can anchor a non-EU defendant under Article 8(1), applied through Article 71b(2), for a Member State outside the UPC, is now before the Court of Justice.13

The jurisdictional link is where most of the published analysis has concentrated. It is also, as the Kodak companies discovered, the link a defendant can lose while still winning the case.

The actor: who did what, and where

Jurisdiction attaches to a defendant. Liability attaches to acts. The distinction sounds elementary until a group structure is involved, as it nearly always is in cross-border patent litigation.

The Court of Appeal has confirmed that its competence under Article 32(1)(a) UPCA extends to allegations of joint tortfeasorship, because an infringer within the meaning of Articles 25 and 63 UPCA includes a person to whom the acts of a third party are attributable as an accessory.14That holding concerns the Court’s power to hear the allegation, whose success depends on the law of the territory. In Fujifilm v Kodak the claimant accepted that under UK law the importer is the party holding the legal and beneficial interest in the goods, so everything turned on title, which the claimant’s own exhibit showed the UK company had kept throughout.15

A statement of claim needs more than a group chart. For each territory it should identify, under the test of the applicable law, the entity that performs each relevant act and the documents showing it. Where the claimant relies on accessory liability, it should plead the facts that satisfy that test. Kodak’s holding company faced no allegation beyond control of a subsidiary that did not infringe, and the claimant never explained why the parent itself would.16

Part of that material sits with the defendant. In WEPA v Essity the Court of Appeal observed, on a complaint already held inadmissible, that preservation of evidence under Article 60 UPCA may reach alleged infringing acts recorded in promotional and commercial documents.17That helps establish who offered and who sold, without opening the group’s files: in Fujifilm v Kodak a request for the toll-manufacturing agreement was turned down as a fishing expedition.18

The rules on multiple defendants operate at two levels. Article 33(1)(b) UPCA allows several defendants to be sued before the local division of one of them only where they have a commercial relationship and the action concerns the same alleged infringement. That rule allocates cases among divisions.19International jurisdiction over a co-defendant depends on Article 8(1) of the Regulation. The Court of Justice has denied a risk of irreconcilable judgments where group companies each infringe a different national part, and accepted it where they are separately accused of infringing the same national part with the same product.20A foreign co-defendant can sometimes be anchored. Its acts still have to be pleaded as its own.

The law: one court, several patent laws

A court hearing the infringement of a foreign designation applies foreign patent law. Under Article 8(1) of the Rome II Regulation, infringement is governed by the law of the country for which protection is claimed, which the parties cannot displace, even where it is the law of a non-Member State.21Applying Article 24(2) and (3) UPCA, the Court of Appeal decided the UK claim under UK law and added that comity also binds a court hearing a foreign designation.22

Foreign law belongs in the body of the claim, together with the facts that meet its conditions. In Fujifilm v Kodak the declaration on UK law arrived only with the reply, and the Court could not tell whether it presented joint tortfeasorship as patent infringement or as a common-law tort, a question it linked to Lifestyle Equities v Ahmed.23That uncertainty did not affect jurisdiction. On liability, the Court drew from Lifestyle, a trade mark case on the accessory liability of directors, the rule that an accessory must know the essential facts making the act wrongful, even for a tort of strict liability. It found no such knowledge shown before the claimant made its allegation.24The claim failed on facts it had not established under the law it invoked.

The same logic applies to defenses. The German prior-use right was assessed under German law, to which Article 28 UPCA refers.25A long-arm claim invites a defendant to plead the exceptions of every territory, each under its own law. A claimant that has not mapped those exceptions before filing is choosing its territories blind.

The validity track: EU, Lugano and the rest

BSH v Electrolux held that a court of the defendant’s domicile keeps jurisdiction over infringement of a patent granted in another Member State even where validity is raised as a defense, validity itself remaining for the granting State, and that Article 24(4) confers nothing on the courts of a third State.26Fujifilm v Kodak turned that ruling into a procedural protocol that leaves the Court considerable room.27

For non-UPC designations in EU Member States or Lugano Convention States, the UPC will not examine validity. If the UPC patent is held invalid but the product would infringe were it valid, the Court considers it appropriate first to let the patentee withdraw those claims. If the patentee declines, the defendant should be given time to bring national revocation proceedings, a stay will generally follow once they are pending, and if none is brought the Court must assume the patent valid. For designations outside that area, such as the United Kingdom, the Court may examine validity inter partes. There, once the UPC patent has fallen, a patentee who refuses to withdraw will see those claims dismissed unless specific reasons, such as a different claim set that may be valid, justify going on.28

If the patent is valid and infringed in the UPC territory, the Court may, where appropriate and to avoid undue delay, grant relief for foreign designations of either kind under a condition subsequent, provided it sees a reasonable, non-negligible possibility that the competent national court will uphold the patent. The orders fall away if that court, at first instance or on appeal, holds the patent wholly or partly invalid to the extent the infringement rests on it. The patentee may then seek consequential orders within two months.29

This protocol changes the economics of the claim. Each foreign designation runs on its own timetable, tied to revocation proceedings the defendant controls, and a national revocation action becomes a case-management tool before the UPC. The statement of claim should anticipate which foreign claim sets differ, which revocation actions are pending and where, and whether the claimant will accept relief that may stay conditional for years.

The remedy: what reaches whom

Article 34 UPCA sets the default territorial scope of decisions without capping jurisdiction.30Relief for a foreign designation must still be framed for that territory.

The strongest objection concerns enforcement. A claimant may say that the value of a long-arm judgment lies in the pressure it creates. UPC decisions are enforceable in any Contracting Member State, non-compliance may attract recurring penalty payments, and damages for foreign infringement can be executed against the defendant’s assets inside the UPC territory without recognition abroad.31On that view, attribution and applicable law are details the defendant will settle rather than litigate.

The pressure is real. The objection is right about leverage and wrong about its object. Relief presupposes an infringement attributed to the defendant under the applicable law, save for the injunction Article 63(1) UPCA allows against an intermediary, whose reach over foreign designations raises questions of its own.32Where the acts belong to a subsidiary never sued, or the foreign accessory test is not met, there is nothing to enforce. Leverage can also turn the other way. Fujifilm, which had enforced first-instance relief, was ordered to compensate Kodak, and the penalties Kodak had paid were ordered refunded.33Execution against assets in the UPC territory should also be kept apart from the judgment’s effect in the foreign State, which depends on that State’s rules of recognition. Assets become a jurisdictional fact only where the ground requires them, as Article 71b(3) does.34

Pharmaceuticals: one launch, several tracks

Consider a generic group whose parent is domiciled in a UPC State and which launches through local affiliates holding the marketing authorizations in Germany, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The parent can be sued at its domicile for its own acts, wherever performed. Whether the Spanish affiliate can be joined depends on whether the claims are so closely connected that separate proceedings risk irreconcilable judgments, something easier to show when both deal in the same product under the same national part than when each works its own market.35

The validity tracks then diverge. Spain is an EU Member State outside the UPC, Switzerland a Lugano Convention State, and the United Kingdom neither. A single launch thus yields two tracks on which the UPC cannot rule on validity and one on which it can, although relief there may still depend on the outcome before the UK courts. Supplementary protection certificates raise a further point: these decisions concern European patents, and whether their reasoning reaches national certificates granted in non-UPC States is undecided.

The patent file will not show the regulatory and commercial structure. In each territory, which entity holds the marketing authorization, which imports, which invoices, and which contracts allocate those roles? Those documents, not the claim chart, will decide the second link.

Standard-essential patents: the implementer’s distribution map

In SEP disputes the parent of an implementer group is often domiciled outside the Union, while local subsidiaries import and sell. Against the parent, Article 71b(2) opens Chapter II but leaves the claimant to find its ground. Article 7(2) now stops at damage in the UPC territory. Article 8(1) needs a co-defendant domiciled in a UPC State. For damage outside the Union, Article 71b(3) extends jurisdiction already established in this way, provided its conditions are pleaded, and its scope remains open after KeeeX. Against a subsidiary domiciled in the UPC territory, Article 4(1) suffices, but liability for the group’s UK sales will depend on who acted there and on the accessory rules of UK law. The group chart will not answer that.

The remedy link raises a question the long-arm cases have not addressed. The FRAND framework set out in Huawei v ZTE rests on Article 102 TFEU.36How it bears on an injunction concerning a non-EU designation, and how comity weighs where that territory’s own courts are setting licensing terms, are questions an implementer will raise and none of these decisions resolves. A SEP holder that pleads a UK designation before the UPC should expect the fifth link to be contested long after the first has been conceded.

The stock already pleaded

The analysis also reaches actions on file. The procedure is front-loaded, KeeeX judged jurisdiction on the statement of claim as filed, and later amendment requires leave.37Pending long-arm claims deserve a review link by link, including the compensation owed if first-instance relief were enforced and later set aside.

For defendants, the lesson runs the other way. A preliminary objection under Rule 19 RoP may fail and still be only a small part of the defense.38The Kodak companies lost that objection, paid its costs, and won the case on attribution and national law.39

A claim that cannot say which entity acted in each territory, under which law it is liable and on which validity track the designation sits remains a list of countries.

The chain before the map

The drafting sequence follows. Jurisdiction is checked at the outset, because a territory the Court cannot hear drops out at once. Then come the acts in each territory and the entities that performed them, with the documents the applicable law treats as proof. Identify the law applicable to each designation and plead its content, including accessory liability and the exceptions a defendant will raise. Place each designation on its validity track and decide in advance whether conditional relief is acceptable. Frame the remedy for each territory and settle where it will be enforced. Only then write the jurisdictional section, by that stage the easiest part of the document.

The map of claims should be drawn last. It is the chain behind each territory that decides where the judgment will actually reach.

• 1UPC Court of Appeal, 2 June 2026, UPC_CoA_312/2025, UPC_CoA_333/2025, UPC_CoA_880/2025 and UPC_CoA_882/2025, Kodak Holding GmbH and Others v Fujifilm Corporation, operative part, points B, E, L, N and P.
• 2Ibid., paras 219, 220, 270 and 271.
• 3Ibid., paras 317, 318, 321, 322, 326 and 327.
• 4M. Dhenne, “The UPC’s Long Arm and the Limits of Its Reach”, Kluwer Patent Blog, 10 March 2026; M. Dhenne, “KeeeXed Out: The UPC’s Long Arm Stops at the Line”, Kluwer Patent Blog, 31 March 2026.
• 5Rules of Procedure of the UPC (RoP), Rule 13.1(i) and (k) to (n); UPC Court of Appeal, 13 March 2026, UPC_CoA_922/2025 to UPC_CoA_925/2025, Adobe Inc and Others v Keeex SAS, paras 41 to 44.
• 6RoP, Rules 263.1 to 263.3; on evidence held by the other party, Rule 190.1.
• 7Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 12 December 2012 (recast), OJ L 351, 20.12.2012, p. 1, as amended by Regulation (EU) No 542/2014, OJ L 163, 29.5.2014, p. 1, Articles 71a and 71b(1).
• 8Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, para 294, following UPC Court of Appeal, 6 March 2026, UPC_CoA_789/2025 and UPC_CoA_813/2025, Dyson Technology Limited v Dreame International (Hongkong) Limited and Eurep GmbH, para 12.
• 9Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 273 to 275 and 285 to 287, referring to Case C-281/02, Owusu, 1 March 2005, ECLI:EU:C:2005:120; Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA), OJ C 175, 20.6.2013, p. 1, Article 34.
• 10Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, Article 71b(2); Adobe v Keeex, above n. 5, paras 30 and 31; Dyson v Dreame, above n. 8, para 15.
• 11Adobe v Keeex, above n. 5, headnotes and paras 51 to 54.
• 12Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, Article 71b(3); Regulation (EU) No 542/2014, recital 7; Adobe v Keeex, above n. 5, paras 39, 53 and 54.
• 13Dyson v Dreame, above n. 8, paras 14 to 18 and operative part, point II, question 1; Case C-196/26, Dreame International, lodged on 11 March 2026 and pending at the time of writing.
• 14Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, para 325, referring to UPC Court of Appeal, 3 October 2025, UPC_CoA_534/2024, Belkin v Philips; UPCA, Articles 25, 32(1)(a) and 63.
• 15Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 317, 318 and 320 to 322.
• 16Ibid., para 271.
• 17UPC Court of Appeal, 3 September 2026, UPC_CoA_113/2026, WEPA Nederland B.V. v Essity Hygiene and Health Aktiebolag, headnote 1 and paras 18 and 19.
• 18Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, para 319 (Article 59 UPCA and Rule 190 RoP).
• 19UPCA, Article 33(1)(b), second sentence.
• 20Case C-539/03, Roche Nederland BV and Others v Primus and Goldenberg, 13 July 2006, ECLI:EU:C:2006:458; Case C-616/10, Solvay SA v Honeywell Fluorine Products Europe BV and Others, 12 July 2012, ECLI:EU:C:2012:445, operative part, point 1; Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012, Articles 8(1), 71b(1) and 71b(2).
• 21Regulation (EC) No 864/2007 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 11 July 2007 (Rome II), OJ L 199, 31.7.2007, p. 40, Articles 3, 8(1) and 8(3).
• 22UPCA, Article 24(2)(a) and (3); Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 281, 301 and 309.
• 23Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 314, 315 and 325, referring to Lifestyle Equities CV v Ahmed [2024] UKSC 17, para 135.
• 24Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, para 327; Lifestyle Equities, above n. 23, paras 133 to 137.
• 25Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 219, 220 and 270; UPCA, Article 28; compare WEPA v Essity, above n. 17, para 32.
• 26Case C-339/22, BSH Hausgeräte GmbH v Electrolux AB, Grand Chamber, 25 February 2025, ECLI:EU:C:2025:108, operative part, points 1 and 2.
• 27Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 302 to 308.
• 28Ibid., paras 302 and 305 to 307.
• 29Ibid., para 308, referring to RoP, Rules 118.2 and 118.4; Rule 118.4 itself opens that application to “any party”.
• 30UPCA, Article 34; Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, paras 274 and 275.
• 31UPCA, Articles 63(2), 82(1), 82(3) and 82(4).
• 32UPCA, Article 63(1); on the notion of intermediary, Dyson v Dreame, above n. 8, paras 26 to 32.
• 33Kodak v Fujifilm, above n. 1, operative part, points E and N; UPC Court of Appeal, 3 August 2026, UPC_CoA_28/2026, Kodak Holding GmbH and Others v Fujifilm Corporation, para 27 and operative part, point IV; RoP, Rule 354.2.
• 34UPCA, Article 82(1) and (3); Adobe v Keeex, above n. 5, paras 39 and 53.
• 35Roche Nederland and Solvay, above n. 20.
• 36Case C-170/13, Huawei Technologies Co. Ltd v ZTE Corp. and ZTE Deutschland GmbH, 16 July 2015, ECLI:EU:C:2015:477.
• 37RoP, Rules 13.1 and 263.2; Adobe v Keeex, above n. 5, paras 41 to 44 and 54.
• 38RoP, Rule 19.1(a).
• 39The order of 31 August 2026 dismissed only Fujifilm’s request that its application for rehearing, lodged on 31 July 2026 against the prior-use ruling, have suspensive effect: UPC Court of Appeal, 31 August 2026, UPC_CoA_312/2025, Fujifilm Corporation v Kodak GmbH and Others, paras 2 and 4 to 9; UPCA, Article 81(2); RoP, Rule 252.