ParTec and BF exaQC Take Note of Largely Favorable but Dismissive First-Instance Ruling. A Pyrrhic Victory for NVIDIA?!

ParTec and BF exaQC Take Note of Largely Favorable but Dismissive First-Instance Ruling. A Pyrrhic Victory for NVIDIA?!
Court: Patent is fully valid. Our view: New NVIDIA products Blackwell and Vera Rubin are massively advanced and meet the patent’s interpretation by the UPC

Munich, March 11, 2026 — The European Unified Patent Court (UPC), Local Division Munich, today dismissed the patent infringement action brought by ParTec AG (ISIN: DE000A3E5A34 / WKN: A3E5A3) and BF exaQC AG against NVIDIA Corporation and NVIDIA GmbH concerning European Patent EP 3 743 812 B1 at first instance. ParTec and BF exaQC will appeal the decision. At the same time, the UPC left no doubt as to the validity of EP 3 743 812 B1: the patent protects the fundamental technology for efficient AI supercomputers. ParTec views this as a strengthening of its patent and a clear signal to the AI industry.

Assessment of the Ruling 
The ruling of the UPC’s Local Division Munich confirms NVIDIA’s use of the patented architecture. A central feature of claim 1 of the patent is the extraction of qualified information from the computer’s iterative computational behavior in order to optimize its workload distribution. The court found this feature to be not fulfilled, as the information used by NVIDIA does not meet the quality requirements of the patent (from ParTec’s perspective: not yet — see below).

At the oral hearing on February 13, 2026, the court had ruled entirely in favor of the plaintiffs on all of NVIDIA’s offensive and defensive arguments (more than 30 separate challenges). The sole issue leading to the dismissal was whether the information processed by NVIDIA’s run:ai platform qualifies as information for further iterations within the meaning of claim 1 of the patent.

The underlying facts are as follows: High-performance microprocessors for the demanding computational work of modern AI systems are currently supplied worldwide exclusively by American companies — such as NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel. However, developing these highly complex chips is only one side of the equation. Efficiently utilizing these processors is the decisive challenge, because even the most sophisticated hardware is of little use if complex AI computational tasks cannot be efficiently distributed across the expensive super-chips.

This is precisely where the asserted patents come in, which are based on decades of intensive research and development by ParTec in collaboration with the Forschungszentrum Jülich. This development — which reaches deep into the architecture of microprocessors — requires that during the computation iteration, specialized, sophisticated information is extracted and used for the redistribution of computational tasks. In this way, the computational potential of the super-chips can be significantly increased and the supercomputers operate considerably more efficiently.

ParTec visited NVIDIA in California as early as 2019 to personally present the concepts and propose a partnership. At the time, with AI not yet on the horizon, the reception was lukewarm.

On the Validity of the Patent: Substantively Confirmed
NVIDIA had conditionally asserted the invalidity of patent EP 3 743 812 — in the event of a ruling on the infringement question unfavorable to NVIDIA. Since the court denied infringement, it was no longer necessary to rule on the counterclaim for invalidation — which NVIDIA had pursued with great intensity throughout the proceedings.

Accordingly, the court at the oral hearing fully rejected NVIDIA’s substantive attacks on the patent’s validity as having no prospect of success. The presiding judge made clear that none of the invalidity grounds raised with full vigor — including subsequently submitted technical documents — would call the patent’s validity into question. The validity of EP 3 743 812 is therefore beyond doubt; the formal judicial declaration was merely prevented by the conditional structure of the counterclaim.

This substantive confirmation of the patent is an important signal to the global AI industry.

Bernhard Frohwitter, CEO of ParTec AG and BF exaQC AG, commented: “To drive processor utilization from the low 20 percent range up to 60 percent and beyond, it is absolutely necessary to use more qualified information than was still the case in the A100 and H100 products. This is already happening in NVIDIA’s modern products — in the GH200 Grace Hopper and especially in Blackwell and Vera Rubin. Since NVIDIA — like other companies — keeps the precise operation of its processors confidential, we have until now been unable to provide the evidence required for court proceedings. That has now changed: in the course of marketing these cutting-edge products, NVIDIA has published sufficient information to allow us to demonstrate the patent infringement. The appeal proceedings will therefore focus on these products. Taking the ruling in all its details as a basis, it concerns a conviction of NVIDIA for infringement of the patent through its latest products.”

Corresponding patents for these inventions also exist in other key AI countries, including the USA, China, Japan, and India.

Appeal: Grounds for Confidence in the Appeal Proceedings
While the first-instance proceedings concerned A100- and H100-based DGX systems, NVIDIA has introduced new product generations with the GH200 Grace Hopper Superchip and the Vera Rubin architecture that unquestionably satisfy the iteration and information features of the patent.

NVIDIA has recently released extensive news and information about its latest development, “Vera Rubin,” which is described as the most advanced processor generation ever. For ParTec, the extensive technical information answers the last remaining question: Vera Rubin uses precisely the qualified information that the court had still been missing in the case of the predecessor models A100 and H100 to confirm the patent infringement as a contentious point in more than 30 attacks by NVIDIA in the court proceedings. NVIDIA is thus developing in the technical direction that the EP 3 743 812 patent had outlined with its invention – a confirmation that is of considerable importance for the appeal proceedings. ParTec is pleased and proud to have provided this technical advancement – all the more so as ParTec had already visited NVIDIA in California in 2019 and personally proposed the concepts. At the time, with AI not yet on the horizon, the reception was lukewarm. 

The Patent: Indispensable for Efficient AI Infrastructure

While American companies have focused intensively on microprocessor architecture over the past decades and have achieved a near-monopoly position in this field worldwide, ParTec — together with Jülich Research Center — has spent 20 years ensuring, both in its products and in its ParaStation software, that the second part of massive computing power is realized: the efficient distribution of computational tasks across microprocessors. Industry and academia confirm through numerous publications that this task distribution plays a key role.

EP 3 743 812 protects the fundamental principle without which modern AI supercomputers remain structurally inefficient: the runtime-based, information-driven redistribution of computational tasks across heterogeneous processors. Empirical studies show that processor utilization in AI supercomputers without this principle can fall well below 50 percent.

Further Patent Infringement Proceedings: EP 3 614 263
Independent of today’s ruling, a second infringement action concerning patent EP 3 614 263 is pending before the UPC. A decision is expected toward the end of 2026. The plaintiffs are also confident in this case.

Bernhard Frohwitter, CEO of ParTec AG and BF exaQC AG: “ParTec has proven, as the architect of JUPITER and numerous other European supercomputers, that Europe is capable of developing the world’s leading AI computing infrastructures — and we will consistently defend the patents that enable these infrastructures.”

About ParTec AG
ParTec AG (ISIN: DE000A3E5A34 / WKN: A3E5A3), headquartered in Munich, has been a leading developer of architectures for modular, sovereign infrastructures for High Performance Computing (HPC), Artificial Intelligence (AI), and Quantum Computing (QC) for over 26 years. Based on its unique patented dynamic Modular System Architecture (dMSA) and the ParaStation Modulo Software Suite, the company designs and implements supercomputers as well as highly scalable data center infrastructures, and advises governments, research institutions, and industrial companies. Numerous European systems with high rankings on the global lists of most powerful (TOP500) and most energy-efficient (Green500) supercomputers are based on ParTec’s technologies. ParTec is deeply embedded in the European research and innovation ecosystem, having participated in more than 18 national and European research projects with over 100 partners in the past 15 years. Most recently, ParTec collaborated with Eviden to build the JUPITER supercomputer at Forschungszentrum Jülich — Europe’s first exascale supercomputer, the fastest supercomputer in Germany and Europe, and the fourth fastest computer in the world (TOP500, June 2025 and November 2025). JUPITER is simultaneously the most energy-efficient exascale system worldwide. JUPITER was officially inaugurated on September 5, 2025, in the presence of Federal Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

Further information at: http://www.par-tec.com

About BF exaQC AG 
BF exaQC AG is the patent monetization subsidiary of the ParTec Group. It holds and exploits patents in the field of heterogeneous high-performance computing and represents the patent rights of the ParTec Group in licensing and patent infringement proceedings worldwide.

About the Unified Patent Court (UPC)
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has been the competent court for unitary European patents in the currently 17 participating EU member states since 2023. The court is not subject to any national government or the European Commission; it is an autonomous European court that issues its decisions in full independence. The UPC enables pan-European patent infringement proceedings with immediate effect in all participating states.

Press Contact

ParTec AG | Investor & Public Relations | presse@par-tec.com | www.par-tec.com