UPC Court of Appeal makes inaugural CJEU referral on long-arm jurisdiction

Two orders issued by the UPC Court of Appeal on 6 March 2026 in Dyson Technology Limited v. Dreame International (Hongkong) Limited and others mark a pivotal moment in the development of the UPC as a pan-European enforcement forum. For the first time, the Court of Appeal has referred questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) – and the questions it has chosen to go to the very heart of the UPC’s reach beyond its own contracting states.

Background

The dispute concerns EP 3 119 235, a unitary patent owned by Dyson covering a curling barrel attachment for handheld hair styling devices – the technology at the core of the Dyson Airwrap. The defendants are Dreame International, a Hong Kong-based manufacturer; its German distributor, Teqphone GmbH; Swedish affiliate Dreame Technology AB; and Eurep GmbH, a German company acting as Dreame’s authorized EU representative under EU product safety regulations.

Dyson sought provisional injunctions covering both the UPC territory and Spain. The Hamburg Local Division found infringement in respect of the older Dreame product range but declined to extend the injunction to newer products, and limited Spain-facing relief to Dreame International and Eurep GmbH. Both parties appealed. The Court of Appeal resolved the UPC-territory infringement complaint by a separate order issued the same day, extending the injunction to all Dreame products in issue. The more significant order, addressed here, concerns the Spanish proceedings and raises four questions to the CJEU.

The referral: long-arm jurisdiction and the meaning of ‘intermediary’

The first two referred questions concern whether the UPC can exercise jurisdiction over Dreame International’s alleged infringing conduct in Spain. Dreame International is not domiciled in any UPC member state. The condition for the UPC’s long-arm jurisdiction, as set out in BSH Hausgeräte v. Electrolux, is therefore not satisfied by Dreame International. At issue is whether Eurep’s German domicile can serve as an anchor to ground jurisdiction over the Hong Kong-based defendant under Article 8(1) of Regulation 1215/2012, read with Article 71b(2). The critical question is whether there is a risk of irreconcilable judgments arising from separate proceedings, where the UPC did not also hear the proceedings relating to Dreame International’s alleged infringing conduct in Spain. This would only be the case if Dreame International, as the alleged infringer, and Eurep, as an alleged intermediary, are sufficiently in the same factual and legal situation. A third question asks whether the UPC can alternatively ground jurisdiction for provisional measures covering Spain under Article 71b(2) directly, given that the same products are sold across UPC and non-UPC EU Member States through near-identical websites.

The fourth question concerns Eurep itself. Having been found not to be a direct infringer, the question is whether its role as authorized EU representative, enabling Dreame International to lawfully market products across the EU, makes it an “intermediary whose services are used” to infringe within the meaning of Article 9(1)(a) of the Enforcement Directive (2004/48). Prior CJEU authority on intermediaries, including Tommy Hilfiger v. Delta Center, has focused on services that enable infringement in practical terms. The Court of Appeal now asks whether the concept can extend to purely regulatory compliance services, where the provider has no operational ability to control the infringing act itself.

Significance and wider implications

The referral builds directly on the Court of Appeal’s February 2025 ruling in BSH Hausgeräte v. Electrolux, which opened the door to UPC jurisdiction over EU-domiciled defendants in respect of non-UPC national rights. The present questions define the next frontier: how far that jurisdiction can reach non-EU defendants, and what role EU-resident entities – whether group affiliates or appointed representatives – play in anchoring it.

The intermediary question carries particular commercial weight. If EU-appointed product safety representatives can be injuncted in patent proceedings, the risk calculus for such appointments changes materially. These arrangements are increasingly common among third-country manufacturers seeking EU market access: a positive answer from the CJEU would expose them to patent enforcement proceedings at the UPC simply by virtue of their compliance infrastructure.

From a procedural perspective, the Court of Appeal’s approach is instructive. By bifurcating the proceedings, resolving the UPC-territory issues immediately while staying only the parts that depend on the CJEU referral, the Court has demonstrated a model of case management that balances judicial efficiency with the need for authoritative guidance on unsettled questions of EU law. That approach is likely to be replicated in future cases where pan-European reach is contested.

Rights holders and defendants should nonetheless plan for the long term. Given that the BSH referral took the better part of three years to resolve, the remaining elements of this case are unlikely to conclude before 2028 or 2029 at the earliest. In the interim, the shape of the UPC’s long-arm jurisdiction and the exposure of EU-domiciled intermediaries in patent enforcement will remain genuinely open questions.

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