Court Of Appeal, August 21, 2026, Order On Application For Provisional Measures, UPC-CoA-61/2026

Cost apportionment where success is achieved on only one of several patents at issue: The unsuccessful party may be ordered to bear costs specifically attributable to “its” patent (Art. 69(2) UPCA)

In the dispute concerning preliminary measures, two patents were at issue originally, EP201 and EP198. However, the applicant withdrew its request based on EP201 before a decision in the first instance was handed down. Subsequently, the court of first instance rejected the application based on EP198. The Court of Appeal overturned this decision – i.e. the decision only regarding EP198 – on appeal.

With regard to recoverable costs, the Court of Appeal held that costs may either be apportioned pro rata to the values of the two patents, or the unsuccessful party may be ordered to bear the costs attributable to the respective patent, depending on the circumstances. In the case at hand, the Court of Appeal decided that it could be assumed that, since the request based on EP201 was withdrawn before the oral hearing in the first instance, more costs were incurred regarding EP198. For this reason, the Court decided to order that each party has to bear the costs specifically attributable to the respective patent with regard to which they did not succeed.

Interim cost awards under R. 211.1(d) RoP are generally capped at 50% of the applicable ceiling under R. 152.2 RoP, and the Court may not award more than requested (Art. 76(1) UPCA)