Stratasys, Inc. v Bambulab GmbH, UPC CFI The Hague Local Division, 24 April 2026, Case Number UPC-CFI-305/2026
Background
On 24 April 2026, the Hague Local Division handed down an order in respect of an application for provisional measures by Stratasys against BambuLab. The dispute concerned an application for provisional measures filed by Stratasys based on alleged indirect infringement of EP 2 964 450 (“EP 450”) with respect to BambuLab’s new 3D printer (referred to as “H2C”).
BambuLab launched H2C at a trade fair in Frankfurt in November 2025. Earlier announcements about H2C were made earlier in other jurisdictions, including the US in August 2025. Stratasys placed an order for the H2C, which was received in December 2025. Testing was completed by 22 January 2026, with the application for provisional measures filed on 27 January 2026.
Construction
The main issue in dispute concerned whether claim 1 of EP 450 should be construed in such a way to cover horizontal layers consisting of only one or multiple types of material. During prosecution, Stratasys had introduced the requirement that the horizontal layers be added layer by layer during the purge operation and argued that the layers would be printed by a single type of material depending on the print head used.
The LD relied on these statements made by Stratasys during prosecution to contrue claim 1 in the present proceedings. On the basis of this narrow construction, the LD concluded that it would be more likely than not that EP 450 would not be infringed as H2C did not reproduce the layer by layer printing of a purge tower whereby each layer consists of one type of material.
Urgency
The LD declined to consider the remaining issues in the proceedings on the basis that the lack of likelihood of infringement was sufficient to dismiss the application. However, it did indicate (without providing reasons) that it would have considered that the application was filed without unreasonable delay i.e. indicating that waiting for the outcome of testing results was appropriate before bringing provisional measures.
A copy of the Order can be found here.
