Short Summary
1 Local Division Mannheim UPC_CFI_636/2025 Procedural Order of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court issued on 25 July 2025 App_32933/2025 Applicant Centripetal Limited Galway Technology Centre, Mervue Business Park, 7XPF+6C Galway, Ireland represented by: Dr
Detailed Summary
1
Local Division Mannheim
UPC_CFI_636/2025
of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court
issued on 25 July 2025
App_32933/2025
Applicant
Centripetal Limited
Galway Technology Centre, Mervue Business Park, 7XPF+6C Galway,
Ireland
represented by:
Dr Ralph Nack, Dr Niclas Gajeck, and Ernesto Garzón Villada (lawyers),
Noerr PartG mbB, Brienner Str. 28, 80333 Munich
and
Dr Frank Meyer-Wildhagen, Dr Martin Meggle-Freund, and
Matthias Block (European Patent Attorneys),
MFG Patentanwälte PartG mbB, Amalienstraße 62, 80799 Munich
electronic address for service:
ralph.nack@noerr.com
Defendant
Palo Alto Networks, Inc.
3000 Tannery Way, Santa Clara, 95054 CA, USA, with its branch office in Rosenheimer Straße 143c, 81671
Munich, Germany
represented by:
Dr Henrik Lehment, Hogan Lovells International LLP,
Dreischeibenhaus 1 - 40211 - Düsseldorf - DE
electronic address for service:
upc-hub@hoganlovells.com
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PATENT AT ISSUE: EP 3 281 580
PANEL/DIVISION: Local Division in Mannheim
DECIDING JUDGE: Prof. Dr. Peter Tochtermann acting as presiding judge and judge-rapporteur
LANGUAGE OF PROCEEDINGS: English
SUBJECT OF THE PROCEEDINGS: Application for Penalty Order
STATEMENT OF FACTS:
1. Applicant motioned for a saisie order before the CFI aiming at seizure and real-time
monitoring of a full setup of the Form of Infringement offered by Defendant. In its
application, Applicant applied to have the Defendant set up such a system to be monitored
at its premises within a period of one month. The CFI LD Mannheim rejected the application
for various reasons by order of 3 March 2025, amongst them a failure to submit sufficient
facts why the Applicant believed to get hold of the network solution it wished to analyse
with the help of an expert at the premises described in the application. Upon appeal the
CoA (order of 28 May 2025, APL_13242/2025, UPC_CoA_239/2025) accepted the
application in a modified version allowing the Applicant to carry out monitoring of
Defendant’s system at the premises contained in the application. The CFI thereafter issued
the respective order upon referral back (order of 3 June 2025, amended by order of 9 July
2025 upon further application).
2. On 11 July 2025 Claimant executed the order and tried to monitor the Form of
Infringement. However, it turned out that at the premises – a co-working space – there
was only one sales person, which did not have any access to the layers of the system
Applicant wanted to monitor. Counsel of Defendant, which had been called to come to the
premises in accordance with the CFI order, which allowed the execution only after
Defendant had been informed by the Applicant about its right to seek assistance of a legal
representative of its choice to attend said inspection and allow Defendant a maximum of
two hours to ensure the presence of such representative, refused to have the Defendant
set up access rights from the US headquarters so as to grant the person at the Munich
office the rights just for the purpose of the inspection so as to be able to provide the access
sought by Applicant. The Applicant’s outside counsel searched the entire office, but did not
find any Next Generation Firewall, cloud computing servers, or any technical
documentation. Applicant's counsel (not the bailiff or the expert) requested from the
present staff member and the Defendant's counsel to somehow create a proprietary
access to allegedly existing technical documentation stored outside the address named in
the operating part of the Saisie Order and not accessible for the personnel present in this
office. Neither the present staff member nor the Defendant's counsel were at the time able
to create such proprietary access.
3. With the request lying before the court, Applicant requests as follows:
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4. Applicant argues that drastic penalties had to be imposed as Defendant blatantly rejected
c
Practitioner Note
This case demonstrates the evidentiary and procedural standards applied in patent matters before Mannheim (DE) Local Division. Understanding the court's reasoning in Centripetal Limited vs Palo Alto Networks, Inc. is valuable context for structuring arguments or assessing risk in similar proceedings.
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