Court Of Appeal, August 21, 2026, Order On Application For Suspensive Effect, UPC_CoA_135/2026

The Court of First Instance is strictly bound by the relief requested according to Art. 76(1) UPCA and cannot award more than is requested. In case a court awards more than is requested (e.g. change of “and”-warning into “or”-disclaimer) this constitutes a manifest error under Art. 76(1) UPCA (cf. Court of Appeal, UPC_CoA_388/2024, Sibio v. Abbott).

In general, an appeal to a first-instance decision has no suspensive effect pursuant to Art. 76(1) UPCA unless one party files a well-founded motion according to R. 223 RoP. The Court of Appeal may grant the request if the circumstances of the case justify an exception. In this regard, the Court must examine whether the appellant’s interest outweighs the Respondent’s interest of enforcement. This can be considered if the first-instance decision contains a manifest error (Court of Appeal, UPC_CoA_365/2025, Knaus Taubert v. Yellow; UPC_CoA_894/2025, Windhager v. Belissa).

Contrary to Appellants’ opinion, the evident incorrectness of the contested first-instance order does not necessarily lead to to the granting of suspensive effect for the entire first-instance decision.

A decision can be separated into delimitable parts if the parts can be asserted or challenged separately from the remaining parts without affecting its meaning. For instance, a finding of direct infringement can be distinguished from a finding of indirect infringement. In light of this, the suspensive effect of an appeal is to be limited to the part which is affected by the manifest error.