Another important signal from the Unified Patent Court, Local Divison Hamburg, on UPC long-arm jurisdiction: The Court appears willing to use Brussels Ia quite ambitiously — but not without limits.
The interesting part is the treatment of Article 8 Brussels Ia.
For Defendant 1, the Court accepted jurisdiction via an anchor defendant. Why? Because Defendant 3, domiciled in the Netherlands, was already properly before the UPC, and the Court considered Defendant 1 and Defendant 3 to be closely connected through the same alleged distribution chain for Spain. In other words: same product, same target market, sufficiently close factual and legal link.
For Defendant 5, however, the result was different. The claimant tried to build jurisdiction through the same anchor defendant logic, but the Court said no. The connection was too weak: Defendant 3’s role as EU authorised representative was not enough to make it foreseeable for a UK-based defendant to be sued before the UPC under Article 8.
So the takeaway is clear:
Art. 8 Brussels Ia remains available as a powerful tool — but only where the co-defendant structure reflects a genuinely close and foreseeable connection. A regulatory or formal role alone will not do the job.
For anyone following UPC long-arm jurisdiction, this is a decision worth watching.
The litigation team at MSP is happy to assess individual constellations in this area and provide comprehensive support.
For further information, please contact Dr.-Ing. Nikolai Köllisch LL.M.