The Paris Division Strikes Back

In Du Hast, But Not So Fast, I suggested that the apparent hegemony of a few UPC divisions would in time recede under the pressure of practice and appellate calibration. The plot seems to be moving faster than that. Like the late-act turn in The Empire Strikes Back, Paris steps back into the light with two matters that quietly reframe venue strategy at the UPC.

Paris, back in the frame

Two filings brought the Paris Local Division into focus over a genuinely hot summer for European patent law.

Merz v. Viatris (fampridine/Fampyra, SPC). A preliminary-injunction application was filed in Paris at the end of July 2025. Case management has been firm from the outset. Most notably, the court limited the length of the parties’ briefs to 70 pages on the basis of proportionality, expressly to keep the preliminary-injunction record usable and the timetable workable ahead of an October hearing. Procedure here is not mere housekeeping; it is the method by which the dispute is made adjudicable.

KeeeX v. OpenAI, Adobe, Truepic and the Coalition for Content Provenance and Authenticity (C2PA). In early August 2025, KeeeX filed a claim with the the Paris Local Division in relation to implementations around the C2PA content-authenticity layer, notably against OpenAI, Adobe, Truepic, and the broad-based industry group C2PA, with a claim for multi-billion-euro damages. Whatever the final contours of the pleadings, the case squarely invites the court to articulate its approach to jurisdictional reach and standards-adjacent digital evidence.

Individually, each case matters on its own doctrinal axis—SPCs and proportionality for Merz; standards and platform-scale AI for KeeeX. Taken together, they test whether Paris can serve as a preferred venue for methodologically dense life-sciences injunctions and system-level digital disputes.

Are litigants really stepping out of the usual lanes?

The pull of the classic venues remains strong. What changes is that sophisticated plaintiffs are also experimenting with Paris when the narrative benefits from tight proportionality control, linguistic fit, and a bench willing to manage complex records under urgent timelines. The Merz file is instructive: rather than defaulting to a habitual venue, the claimant chose Paris to calibrate urgency, territorial scope and documentary discipline in a high-stakes launch window.

On KeeeX, the choice of Paris by a French innovator to confront platform actors and an industry coalition over a standards-layer technology is equally telling. This is less about contrarian forum selection than about identifying a venue perceived as ready to handle cross-border, tech-heavy disputes with procedural economy.

Will the trend hold—and will it spread beyond France?

Two cautious thoughts.

First, Paris will keep its screen time if it continues to deliver coherent, replicable case management and doctrine. Reasoned page limits grounded in proportionality, disciplined timetables and a willingness to decide jurisdictional questions without paralysis are precisely the habits that generate repeat filings. If parties can predict how Paris will frame urgency, scope and evidentiary load, Paris moves from experiment to habit.

Second, spillover beyond France is plausible where fact patterns fit. The Hague’s tradition of swift, technically literate interim relief and Milan’s growing momentum suggest that venue pluralism is not a slogan but a pathway. As local divisions articulate predictable approaches to proportionality and territorial reach, multi-node strategies across the UPC become easier to design.

None of this implies that the historic leaders fade. They remain central to the Court’s early jurisprudence. What changes is the map: the era of one obvious venue gives way to plural options, and Paris has signaled that it is prepared to host both disciplined SPC litigation and systemic technology cases.

Closing scene, not end credits

The Empire Strikes Back does not resolve the conflict; it rearranges the balance of forces. If Merz v. Viatris yields principled guidance on SPC-based preliminary relief, and if KeeeX prompts a serious engagement with standards-layer disputes in AI, we may look back at late July and early August 2025 as the moment Paris rewrote its role in the UPC script—not by displacing anyone, but by making strategy genuinely multipolar.