Short Summary
This is a procedural order from the Local Division The Hague of the Unified Patent Court concerning patent EP2061230. The court dismissed Samsung's request to extend the deadline for filing its rejoinder/reply submissions and admitted Maxell's 44 auxiliary requests into the proceedings. The court found the number of auxiliary requests reasonable given the large number of invalidity attacks asserted by Samsung and the manageable number of new features actually introduced.
Detailed Summary
This procedural order concerns infringement proceedings brought by Maxell, Ltd. (Claimant) against four Samsung entities (Defendants) regarding European Patent EP2061230 ('EP 230'). Maxell initiated the proceedings by uploading a statement of claim on 29 March 2025. Samsung filed its statement of defence and a separate counterclaim for revocation on 9 September 2025, seeking revocation of EP 230 in its entirety.
In response to the counterclaim, Maxell filed a conditional application to amend EP 230 on 10 November 2025, together with its reply to the statement of defence and its defence to the counterclaim. The application included 44 auxiliary requests (ARs), originally uploaded as a single 566-page document. The court requested Maxell to submit each AR as a separate exhibit and to justify why 44 conditional ARs constitutes a reasonable number under Rule 30.1(c) RoP.
Maxell explained that the 44 ARs concern only ten core amendment families: eight recurring families (1-8) plus two distinct stand-alone requests. Four recurring variants 'a' through 'd' are uniformly repeated across ARs 1-8, with 'a' adding a Remote Control feature, 'b' adding UTF-8 character encoding, 'c' adding a Touch Panel feature, and 'd' combining all three plus a Streaming feature. Maxell also provided a tabular overview (exhibit AMEND 2) to facilitate assessment.
Samsung argued that 44 ARs was not reasonable, that the re-uploaded separate exhibits were flawed, and that the ARs introduced features from the description rather than from dependent claims. Samsung also filed an R.9-Application requesting a six-week extension of the deadline for its next submissions, arguing it needed more time to address the ARs.
The court dismissed the extension request, holding that the circumstances were not exceptional. The court found the number of 44 ARs reasonable because: (1) the ARs effectively revolve around a smaller subset of approximately twelve new features recombined across requests; (2) Samsung had asserted an exceptionally large number of invalidity attacks, including added matter attacks, inventive step attacks, and nine separate novelty attacks against claim 1 alone (using prior art D1-D9), plus additional novelty attacks against dependent claims 2, 5, and 6; (3) Samsung had not pointed to any specific AR or group of ARs that was unreasonable; (4) Maxell was able to address all invalidity attacks within the scheduled two-month timeframe; and (5) some of the ARs were identical or very similar to amendments proposed in a parallel case concerning a divisional of EP 230 before the LD Munich (UPC_CFI_665/2025), where Samsung's next submission was due on 22 December 2025—three weeks before the same pleading was due in the present proceedings.
The court also rejected Samsung's argument regarding the flawed re-uploaded exhibits, noting that Samsung had unflawed access to all requests via the combined exhibit AMEND 1 available in the CMS since 10 November 2025, and that unflawed versions had been provided to Samsung directly. The court noted it was common practice for ARs to introduce features from the description rather than from dependent claims.
The court ordered that: (I) the R.9-Application to extend the deadline is dismissed; and (II) the 44 ARs are admitted into the proceedings. The deadline for Samsung to file its rejoinder, reply to the defence to the counterclaim, and defence to the application to amend remained 12 January 2026. The order is subject to review by the panel on a reasoned request within 15 days of service.
Practitioner Note
This case demonstrates the evidentiary and procedural standards applied in patent matters before The Hague (NL) Local Division. Understanding the court's reasoning in Maxell, Ltd. vs Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et al. is valuable context for structuring arguments or assessing risk in similar proceedings.
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