UPC Local Division: Service of the Statement of Claim

In the underlying proceedings, the claimant brought an action for patent infringement against several companies of the defendants’ corporate group. These companies also included the defendant in the now-separated and independently conducted proceeding. The separation occurred because service of process on this defendant at the address provided by the claimant—i.e., a group company located in Germany—was unsuccessful. The statement of claim and its exhibits were then transmitted pursuant to the requirements of the Hague service authority to the authority responsible for Hong Kong, a Special Administrative Region of the People’s Republic of China. However, service was challenged on the grounds that the exhibits were not submitted in duplicate, and that Hong Kong was not correctly designated as part of the People’s Republic of China. Another attempt to serve the statement of claim via an alternative method or to a different place under Rule 275.1 of the Rules of Procedure is not required once all service options under Rules 270–274 of the Rules of Procedure have been exhausted and the central authority of the requested state under the Hague Convention on the Service Abroad of Judicial and Extrajudicial Documents in Civil or Commercial Matters has seriously and definitively refused service because, for as long as, the defendant’s place of business indicated by the claimant does not align with that state’s political stance (Local Division Mannheim, 31 July 2024, Court of First Instance 330/2023).