Poland: A Intellectual Property Overview

The Polish Approach to Patent Litigation: A Specialised and Divided System

In Poland, intellectual property (IP) disputes are adjudicated before the Polish Patent Office (the PPO) and five specialised IP Divisions of the Regional Courts (the IP Courts). As Polish law operates along bifurcated lines, separating infringement and validity proceedings, the PPO remains competent in patent, trade mark and industrial design invalidation matters. The only exception is counterclaims in trade mark and industrial design court disputes, where the defendant may raise an invalidity claim as a defence within infringement proceedings, making the IP Courts competent to hear the case. In matters concerning patent infringement, the IP Division of the Regional Court in Warsaw holds exclusive jurisdiction. This division of responsibilities has enabled Poland to create a system that supports flexible and goal-driven litigation planning. By sequencing infringement and invalidation proceedings, parties are able to tailor their enforcement or defence tactics to their commercial objectives, and pursue legal actions in a manner that best serves their strategic interests.

Poland as an important venue for IP litigation

Poland has increasingly consolidated its position as a significant forum for IP litigation in Europe. As Poland is a rapidly evolving country, its importance is no longer driven solely by the size of its domestic market but also by its function as a large, commercially contested market, where commercial interests of various international entities converge in complex IP disputes. High-value patent disputes litigated in major European jurisdictions are also being pursued in Poland, including pharmaceutical cases concerning innovative medicinal substances such as Dapagliflozin, Apixaban, and Rivaroxaban.

Global innovation rankings position the PPO within the top tier of patent offices worldwide (WTR IP Office Innovation Ranking 2024) as the recognition of the PPO’s continued investment in growth and commitment to modernisation to better serve the needs of rightsholders. Consequently, legal actions in Poland have become a valuable component of rightsholders' multi-jurisdictional litigation strategies.

Dispute data in the IP Courts in 2025

Analysis of official court data shows continued growth in IP litigation in recent years. The number of newly filed cases in the IP Courts amounted to 5,845 in 2025 (according to Ministry of Justice statistics for the IP Courts), pointing to growing awareness and confidence in the Polish specialised IP judiciary. As the IP Courts’ docket expands by more than 5,000 newly commenced proceedings each year, the number of cases resolved annually likewise exceeds 5,000.

Litigation initiated before Polish courts has the potential to influence legal standards beyond national borders. In areas where EU law permits divergent national interpretations, the Polish courts do not hesitate to refer legally intricate questions of EU intellectual property law to the CJEU. Poland’s engagement with the CJEU is active, but not excessive compared with other EU jurisdictions, with 30-50 requests for preliminary rulings made annually. Questions referred to the CJEU by Polish courts tend to focus on issues of broader systemic aspects of IP enforcement and decisions issued in those cases often become landmark judgments, ie, notable examples of cases: C-334/22 (Audi v GQ) and C-355/21 (Perfumesco v Procter & Gamble).

The currently pending case C-601/25, concerning the scope of the right to information available to Polish collective management organisations, exemplifies this trend. The case will determine whether information requests unrelated to any pending or intended infringement action are compatible with EU law, and whether the plaintiff must establish a prima facie case demonstrating the rightsholders' entitlement to claims and remuneration. The outcome is expected to significantly affect the position of authors, artists, producers, publishers, distributors and collective management organisations against potential infringers, as access to reliable data on rights exploitation is crucial for quantifying potential claims.

Legislative developments in Poland

Poland's intellectual property framework continues to evolve. Following the successful amendment of the Copyright Act, which introduced changes to the liability regime applicable to online content-sharing service providers and to authors' remuneration mechanisms, legislative work is underway to reform the national system of geographical indications. These efforts aim to align Polish law with Regulation (EU) 2023/2411, establishing a uniform framework for the protection of geographical indications for craft and industrial products. This reform is part of a broader plan to modernise industrial property law, including shifting from substantive examination to a registration-based system for utility models.

Unified Patent Court asserts jurisdiction over Poland

Poland has not signed the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA) and is not part of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) system. Nonetheless, a heated debate has erupted over whether Poland, remaining outside the UPC framework, will recognise judgments in which the UPC purports to extend its jurisdiction to Polish territory and Polish entities.

The idea of "long-arm” jurisdiction exercised by the UPC is undeniably appealing. The UPC offers swift proceedings: patent infringement actions before UPC Local Divisions are typically resolved within an average of 14 months, with appeals handled in around five months. For patent holders, the prospect of capturing alleged infringements across multiple countries, including non-UPC states like Poland, in a single proceeding before a specialised court is an attractive proposition.

Conversely, this expansive reading of the UPC's reach appears to clash with the very nature of the court itself. The UPC was established by, and for, the states that signed and ratified the UPCA. Extending its authority to countries that have deliberately remained outside that agreement raises fundamental questions about the legitimacy and enforceability of such decisions.

In practice, several first-instance UPC divisions have embraced the "long-arm” jurisdiction concept. In Hurom v NUC (Paris LD, 23 May 2025), under Article 4(1) of the Brussels Ibis Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012, the UPC asserted jurisdiction over alleged patent infringement in Poland on the basis that one defendant was domiciled in Germany, a UPC contracting member state. In Genevant v Moderna (The Hague LD, 23 May 2025), the UPC went further, establishing jurisdiction over a Polish subsidiary, Moderna Poland sp. z o.o., as a co-defendant, relying on the anchor defendant mechanism under Article 8(1) of the Brussels Ibis Regulation. In Dyson v Dreame International (The Hamburg LD, 14 August 2025), the UPC ordered provisional measures extending not only to UPC territory but also to Spain, another non-UPC state.

This broad approach has now been questioned at the appellate level. On 6 March 2026, the UPC Court of Appeal, reviewing the Dyson case, upheld the first-instance decision for UPC territory but stayed the proceedings regarding non-UPC jurisdiction, referring four questions to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). These questions address the proper understanding of the anchor defendant and whether the UPC may assert jurisdiction over entities from outside the EU and over infringements in non-UPC countries such as Spain and Poland. Until the CJEU delivers its judgment, which is expected within approximately two years, the "long-arm” jurisdiction doctrine will probably remain frozen, and first-instance divisions are unlikely to apply it further.

The debate therefore remains unresolved. The ultimate challenge is the enforceability of UPC judgments in non-UPC member states. As Poland is a member of the EU, enforcement of judgments from other EU countries should, in principle, be automatic. However, whether obtaining an enforcement clause and enforcing a UPC judgment in Poland will prove to be a mere formality remains an open question.