2025-07-28 - LD Hamburg - FAKRO v. Dolle - UPC_CFI_718/2024

[Note: this is registry entry 900002413. One Hamburg Local Division order of 28 July 2025 refusing the same application is held under four case-file registry entries: nodes 900002413, 900002412 and 900002410 as ORD_31240/2025 under UPC_CFI_718/2024, and node 900002408 as ORD_31233/2025 under UPC_CFI_461/2024. The four documents differ only in the registry block.] The judge-rapporteur of the Hamburg Local Division refused the defendants' application for an indication whether the panel would admit their submissions on two late-filed prior-art documents, and for an interim conference. Both R. 334(c) RoP (communication with the parties to indicate the Court's wishes or requirements) and R. 334(b) RoP (interim conference) confer a discretion, and neither was exercised in the defendants' favour. The admission question belongs to the full panel rather than to the judge-rapporteur, both sides had already pleaded fully for admission and for non-admission, and the panel's position will be communicated at the oral hearing where the parties can comment — so withholding an indication does not offend the fair-trial principle. On the interim conference the Division held that the disputed construction of the claim features, the validity questions and the identification of the attacked embodiments can all be dealt with at the oral hearing, as they would be before a German infringement court. It added that a fresh separate revocation action, which the defendants said non-admission would force them to bring, could not be taken into account in these proceedings because the written procedure remained only formally to be closed.