2026-07-27 - LD Munich - Reinhausen v. Shanghai Huaming Power Equipment - UPC-CFI-0001747/2026

Was ist diese UPC-Entscheidung?

Zusammenfassung: [Note: this order of 27 July 2026 bears both UPC_CFI_1746/2026 and UPC_CFI_1747/2026 and concerns EP 3 427 283 B1 (selector for an on-load tap changer), whose Art. 83(3) UPCA opt-out was withdrawn on 12 May 2026, a week before the inspection application. The parallel order of the same date and panel in UPC_CFI_1751/2026 + 1752/2026 (nodes 183896, 183895) concerns the sibling patent EP 3 427 284 B1 and shares this reasoning verbatim. Classified per node.] On review under R. 197.3 RoP of an ex parte preservation-of-evidence and inspection order executed at a Berlin trade fair, the Munich Local Division (Panel 2, Voß) held that Art. 60(1) UPCA — which permits such measures only 'provided that the protection of confidential information is ensured' — is a special rule alongside the court's general discretion under Art. 58 UPCA and R. 262, 262A RoP, and obliges the court to secure confidentiality of its own motion. Where measures are ordered without hearing the respondent (Art. 60(5) UPCA, R. 197.1 RoP), confidentiality measures must therefore be ordered even though no concrete confidentiality interests have been pleaded, unless such interests are exceptionally and obviously excluded; the panel accepted that it had inadvertently omitted the applicant's own representatives from the confidentiality obligation, leaving a protection gap that the duty to keep the expert's description confidential does not close, because information surfacing during the inspection itself need not coincide with the content of that description. The Court further held that the respondent is not required, at the review stage, to identify concrete confidential information or plead confidentiality interests: R. 197.6 sentence 3 RoP shows that the regime persists even where an ex parte order is amended or revoked, the review procedure provides no substantiation mechanism, and it would be neither fair nor procedurally economical to require a respondent who does not know what the applicant has already seen to enumerate every conceivable secret. Displaying the inspected device behind plexiglass and a housing at a trade fair did not destroy confidentiality in its internal construction; the request for a general costs decision was rejected as not amenable to regulation in preservation proceedings.

Quelle und Fundstellen

Quelle: UPC Website

Aktenzeichen: UPC-CFI-0001747/2026