UPC Court of Appeal: Extension of the appeal period

In the impugned decision, the court dismissed both a request for a preliminary injunction and the action on the merits. The ‘Information about Appeal’ merely referred to the 2-month time limit for appeal on the merits. The Court of Appeal recognizes that the Court of First Instance should have issued a separate order in the preliminary injunction proceedings, separate from the decision in the infringement action, even if both requests were rejected on the same grounds and even if they were combined in one and the same document. An ambiguity arising from reading Art 62 UPCA and R 220.1(c) and 224.1(b) RP together, in combination with incorrect or at least incomplete information provided by the Court of First Instance, therefore led the appellant to believe that a time limit of two months applied to the appeal against the order. The principle of the protection of legitimate expectations requires that, in the exceptional circumstances of this case, the appellant be allowed to rely on the information provided by the Court of First Instance that the applicable term for lodging a Statement of appeal was two months, when in fact it was 15 days (UPC 26.4.2024, CoA 500/2023).