Mannheim Local Division UPC_CFI_197/2025
Order
of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court issued on 30 April 2025 concerning EP 2 481 141 concerning App_20478/2025 (service date; time periods)
CLAIMANT:
Powermat Technologies, Ltd.
- Communication Center, Bldg. B - 9085000 - Neve Ilan
represented by Ulrich Worm
DEFENDANTS:
- Anker Innovations Technology Co., Ltd.
- Building 7, Phase I, China Software Park, Yuelu District - 410000 - Changsha (Hunan Province) - CN
represented by Christopher Maierhöfer
- Anker Technology (UK) Ltd.
- Gnr8 49 Clarendon Road - WD17 1HP - Watford - GB
represented by Christopher Maierhöfer
- Anker Innovations (Netherlands) B.V.
- Weena-zuid 130 - 3012NC - Rotterdam - NL
represented by Christopher Maierhöfer
- Anker Innovations Ltd.
- Unit 56, 8th Floor Tower 2, Admiralty Centre, 18 Harcourt Road - 0000 - Hong Kong - HK
represented by Christopher Maierhöfer
- Anker Innovations Deutschland GmbH
- Georg-Muche-Straße 3 - 80807 - München - DE
represented by Christopher Maierhöfer
PATENT AT ISSUE:
European patent 2 481 141
PANEL/DIVISION:
Panel of the Local Division in Mannheim
DECIDING JUDGES:
This order was issued by the legally qualified judge Böttcher acting as judge-rapporteur.
LANGUAGE OF THE PROCEEDINGS: English
SUBJECT OF THE PROCEEDINGS: infringement action - service date; time periods
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE FACTS:
After service on Defendant 5 has been effected on 26 April 2025, all parties to the proceedings have agreed that, service on all Defendants shall be deemed to have been effected uniformly on 30 April 2025, in return for the UPC representatives of Defendant 5 also accept service on behalf of all other Defendants without the need for service abroad and associated translations.
Defendants request that the Court order
- I. The date of service of the Statement of Claim on all of Defendants shall be 30 April 2025;
- II. The deadline for lodging preliminary objections shall end for all Defendants on 30 April 2025; and
- III. The deadline for lodging the statement of defence (including any counterclaim for revocation) shall end for all Defendants on 30 July 2025.
For the avoidance of doubt, Defendants point out that for those Defendants on which service has already been effected, these request shall be deemed a request to extend the deadline for filing the preliminary objection and the statement of defence .
REASON FOR THE ORDER:
Since the parties are free to mutually agree on a service date for Defendants, on which the service of the statement of claim has not been effected yet, the services date for these Defendants is set for 30 April 2025.
As far as the service on Defendants has already been effected before 30 April 2025, the
corresponding time periods for the preliminary objection are extended to 30 May 2025 and for the statement of defence to 30 July 2025. The extension of the time periods is justified by the consent of all parties and the purpose of avoiding service abroad and of establishing a uniform time period regime. In the case of service abroad and without a uniform time period regime, different time periods would apply in individual procedural relationships throughout the entire written procedure. This would make the management of proceedings more difficult for all parties involved.
Since the time period for filing a counterclaim for revocation is based on and automatically in line with the time period for the statement of defence, no separate extension of the time limit for filing a counterclaim for revocation is necessary.
ORDER:
-
- For those Defendants, on which the service of the statement of claim has not been effected yet, the service date is set for 30 April 2025. For these Defendants, the time period for the preliminary objection shall end on 30 April 2025 and the time period for the statement of defence on 30 July 2025.
-
- As far as the service on Defendants has already been effected before 30 April 2025, the corresponding time periods for the preliminary objection are extended to 30 May 2025 and for the statement of defence to 30 July 2025.
ORDER DETAILS
Order no. ORD_20661/2025 in ACTION NUMBER: ACT_10747/2025
UPC number: UPC_CFI_197/2025
Action type:
Infringement Action
Related proceeding no. Application No.:
20478/2025
Application Type:
Generic procedural Application
Issued in Mannheim on 30 April 2025
NAME AND SIGNATURE
Böttcher Judge-rapporteur