No. 152 - 13 October 2026
Does signing a UPC pleading require a qualified electronic signature? And is logging into the Case Management System (CMS) sufficient to authenticate a submission?
The Court of Appeal has now clarified the requirements under R. 4.1 RoP. A pleading must be signed, but neither a qualified nor an advanced electronic signature is required. A scan of a handwritten signature can be sufficient.
The clarification is particularly welcome following recent Court of Appeal orders emphasising that authentication through the CMS does not replace the requirement to sign the document itself.
The underlying infringement action concerns EP 3 841 735 and is pending before the Brussels Local Division. The defendants, Esko-Software and Esko-Graphics, requested a change of the language of proceedings from Dutch to English under Art. 49.5 UPCA.
The President of the Court of First Instance rejected that request. The defendants appealed.
During the appeal proceedings, the claimant raised an additional issue: the statement of appeal did not bear a qualified or advanced electronic signature within the meaning of the eIDAS Regulation. Instead, it contained scanned handwritten signatures of the defendants' representatives.
The claimant questioned whether this satisfied R. 4.1 RoP, particularly in light of the Court of Appeal's recent orders in SharkNinja v SEB (22 May 2026, UPC-CoA-61/2026) and Windhager v bellissa (21 August 2026, UPC-CoA-894/2025).
The Court of Appeal starts from the wording of R. 4.1 RoP:
“Written pleadings and other documents shall be signed and lodged at the Registry or relevant sub-registry in electronic form.”
The Court confirms its earlier case law: logging into the CMS through a secure authentication process is not sufficient. The document itself must be signed by an authorised representative.
However, the Rules do not specify that this must be a qualified or advanced electronic signature. Nor does such a requirement follow from the UPCA, the Court of Appeal's previous case law or the eIDAS Regulation.
The Court distinguishes between the requirement to sign a document and the technical form of that signature.
A qualified electronic signature may offer advantages, particularly in terms of evidential value. But it is not mandatory for filings under R. 4.1 RoP.
In the present case, the statement of appeal contained the names and scanned handwritten signatures of four representatives. The document identified them as acting on behalf of the defendants, and one was registered in the CMS as their UPC representative.
There was no doubt that the signatures originated from the authorised representatives or that the document was genuinely filed on behalf of the defendants.
The Court therefore considered the statement of appeal validly signed and the appeal admissible.
Although the signature issue forms the headnote, the order also addresses the change of language under Art. 49.5 UPCA.
The Court of Appeal confirms that the President of the Court of First Instance enjoys discretion when deciding whether to change the language of proceedings to the language in which the patent was granted. Appellate review is correspondingly limited to errors in the exercise of that discretion.
Here, all parties were established in the Dutch-speaking region of Belgium. The claimant was a small undertaking, whereas the defendants belonged to a substantially larger international group with considerably greater resources.
The President was entitled to give weight to both circumstances.
The defendants argued that the patent had been granted in English, that much of the evidence and correspondence was in English, and that English was the working language in the relevant technical field. They also relied on the need to coordinate with foreign lawyers because the infringement action sought remedies extending beyond the UPC territory.
The Court held that these considerations did not require a change of language. In particular, the need to communicate with foreign lawyers in English did not make it unfair to conduct the centralised proceedings in Dutch.
The appeal was therefore dismissed.
