UPC_CFI_198/2024 – Decision of 28 May 2025
The Paris seat of the UPC’s Central Division has handed down a revocation judgment in the streaming-media case Aylo Premium v DISH. Crucially, the panel accepted the claimant’s request to limit the revocation to the German national part of EP 3 822 805 B1 – confirming that Art. 34 UPCA sets merely the outer territorial reach of UPC decisions, while Art. 76(1) UPCA (ne ultra petita) lets parties tailor the relief they seek.
The Court saw “no impediment” to revoking only the DE segment of the bundle patent. Art. 34 UPCA governs effect, not jurisdiction, and nothing in the Agreement forbids a claimant from carving out territories.
Although an EPO opposition hearing was imminent, the judges refused to pause the UPC case. Given the advanced stage (oral hearing already held) and the Court’s one-year timetable mandate, expediency outweighed any efficiency gains from awaiting the OD’s decision.
DISH’s objection to late-filed demonstrative slides failed – the contested points were already on record, so no prejudice arose.
DISH’s main defence was an unconditional amendment (and 16 auxiliary requests). Central to every claim set was feature 1.7: requesting “the streamlet of the highest quality copy … determined sustainable at that time.”
The panel held that the parent PCT application only disclosed a step-wise upshift to the next higher quality, not a jump to the highest sustainable level. The “highest” wording therefore constituted an unallowable generalisation (Art. 123(2) EPC → Art. 138(1)(c) EPC).
