Companies are once again filing more lawsuits in German courts. This is evident from the figures for 2025 collected by JUVE Patent from seven regional courts. The driving force behind this development — who would have thought — is Munich Regional Court, which has recently made a name for itself with important decisions and rules on FRAND. With 332 new patent lawsuits filed between January and December 2025, the Bavarian court of first instance has reached a new all-time high, firmly placing itself at the top of the list of important German patent locations.

The court achieved this with a very decisive approach in SEP cases, which established Munich as the go-to court for FRAND issues. The decision in Wilus vs Asus recently demonstrated this once again, in which the 7th Civil Chamber clarified its FRAND rules. In an interview with JUVE Patent, Oliver Schön, presiding judge of the 7th Civil Chamber, commented on his chamber's new procedural rules, long-arm jurisdiction and the change in the national European patent court landscape due to moves to the UPC. This development was recently underlined once again by the European court's decision to open a new panel at the local division in Düsseldorf with Bérénice Thom at the helm.

Meanwhile, the highest courts in Germany and the UK issued some notable rulings, such as the German Federal Court of Justice in HMD vs VoiceAge and the UK Supreme Court on the question of patentability of inventions supported by AI applications.

The country's highest court overturned the UKIPO's traditional examination scheme and established a new practice that is closer to that of the European Patent Office. The applicant, Emotional Perception AI, can now once again hope for the grant of a patent for a system that recommends data files. The patent community in London is hailing the decision as modern, forward-looking and economically significant. A ray of hope in the kingdom's rather modest economic situation post-Brexit.

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