Short Summary
1 Paris Local Division UPC_CFI_361/2025 Procedural Order of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court delivered on 26/08/2025 concerning R. 9.1 and R. 9.3 (a) RoP APPLICANTS 1) Vivo Mobile Communication Iberia SL Calle Orense 58, Planta 12 C 28020 - Madrid – ES 2) 3) Vivo Tech GmbH Spe
Detailed Summary
1
Paris Local Division
UPC_CFI_361/2025
of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court
delivered on 26/08/2025
concerning R. 9.1 and R. 9.3 (a) RoP
APPLICANTS
1)
Vivo Mobile Communication Iberia SL
Calle Orense 58, Planta 12 C
28020 - Madrid – ES
2)
3)
Vivo Tech GmbH
Speditionstrasse 21
40221 - Düsseldorf – DE
Vivo Mobile Communication Co., Ltd.
No. 1, Vivo Road, Chang'an Town
523866 - Dongguan City, Guangdong - CN
Represented by
Dr Georg Andreas Rauh
RESPONDENT
1)
Sun Patent Trust
437 Madison Avenue, 35th Floor
10022 - New York - US
Represented by
Sabine Agé
2
PATENT AT ISSUE
Patent no.
Proprietor
EP3852468
Sun Patent Trust
DECIDING JUDGE
Presiding judge &
Camille Lignières
Judge-rapporteur
LANGUAGE OF PROCEEDINGS: English
ORDER
of the facts and proceedings
In the context of an infringement action brought before the present Division on April 18, 2025,
SUN PATENT TRUST requested protection for certain information considered confidential under
Art. 58 UPCA and R. 262A RoP.
Following a case management meeting on the confidentiality issue with all the representatives,
the judge rapporteur issued an order on July 3, 2025, allowing the defendants to provide their
comments on the request filed under R 262A by setting a provisional confidentiality circle allowing,
in particular, the defendants' representatives and their “legal team” to have access to all the
documents in the file “unredacted,” and provided that the starting point for the time limits for
filing a Preliminary Objection (PO) or the Statement of Defense (SoD) would take effect upon the
final order on the confidentiality regime, in these terms: “The Court's order setting the
confidentiality regimes and granting access to the Confidential and Highly Confidential Information
shall specify that the proceedings deadlines agreed between the parties, i.e. one month for any
Preliminary objection and three months for the Statement of Defense, shall run as of the date of
this order.” Moreover, one natural person from the Defendants was allowed to have access to the
names of the Claimant’s licensees.
The final order establishing a confidentiality circle for access to information classified as
confidential was issued by the full panel on July 31, 2025. The claimant challenged the composition
of the confidentiality circle for access to information classified as “highly confidential” and
appealed on this point. Leave to appeal was granted, and a request for suspensive effects was filed
before the Court of Appeal.
It appears from the parties' explanations that SUN PATENT TRUST asked VIVO’s representatives
not to grant immediate access to the three natural persons mentioned in the order of July 31,
provided that they intended to file an appeal, and VIVO voluntarily complied with this request.
Against this background, VIVO requested clarification from the Judge rapporteur on the starting
point of the time limits for filing a PO (one month R. 19 RoP) and the SoD (three months according
to R. 23 RoP).
According to VIVO, the time period did not begin to run because the order of July 31 July 2025 was
not voluntarily enforced by the parties and because that order did not expressly mention that it
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constituted the starting point for the filing of the PO and the SoD. VIVO submitted an alternative
request for extension time under R.9.3 RoP.
According to SUN PATENT TRUST, the starting point should be set at the date of the present order,
and alternatively the Claimant requests that: “ the deadline for filing a preliminary objection and
the Statement of defence on the claims under A.I., A.III., and B of the Operative Part of the
Statement of claim will start at the date of its order; the deadline for responding to Operative Part
A.II. of the Claimant’s Statement of claim will start at the date of the Court of Appeal decision
against the order of 31 July 2025. “
Grounds
Concerning the request on the starting point of the time limits (runtime of terms for fili
Practitioner Note
This case demonstrates the evidentiary and procedural standards applied in patent matters before Paris (FR) Local Division. Understanding the court's reasoning in Vivo Tech GmbH, Vivo Mobile Communication Iberia SL, Vivo Mobile Communication Co., Ltd. vs Respondent is valuable context for structuring arguments or assessing risk in similar proceedings.
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