Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 16 April 2025)

Date	16 April 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Munich (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_16059/2025 · ORD_16097/2025
Parties	Heraeus Electronics GmbH & Co. KG

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

Dhenne Avocats represents claimants and defendants in European patent disputes before the Unified Patent Court, including the Paris divisions.

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Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By procedural order of 16 April 2025 (UPC_CFI_114/2024, ORD_16097/2025), Judge-rapporteur Zigann of the Munich Local Division set the end of the written procedure in the infringement action on EP 3 215 288 brought by Heraeus Electronics and Heraeus Precious Metals against Vibrantz: Heraeus’s time limits for reply run from 18 March 2025, Vibrantz’s from 22 April 2025 at the latest, and the written procedure ends on 22 May 2025. Heraeus’s other requests, including an extension to 2 May 2025, were rejected. The order clarifies how a confidentiality club interacts with time limits.

Question

Does the time limit for reply run from the representative’s access to the unredacted rejoinder or from the final confidentiality order, and do holidays of confidentiality club members justify an extension?

Decision

Time runs from 18 March 2025, when the CMS shows that Heraeus’s representative was given access to the unredacted documents: access is through the representative, and the preliminary confidentiality order of that day is clear. Club members could have accessed the documents from that date, without waiting for the final confidentiality order to become final. Their holidays are a matter of their own choice and cannot affect the running of time limits. New submissions in Vibrantz’s rejoinder on alleged prior use will be rejected as late unless Vibrantz shows good reason why they were not made in the statement of defence. Heraeus’s reply therefore need not be broadened.

Key points for practice

Practical point: time runs from the representative’s access to the unredacted documents, the internal organisation of the confidentiality club, holidays included, does not stop it.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 9, 102.2 and 333
Case law cited: No UPC decision is cited.

Prepared by Dhenne Avocats from the official decision, consulted on 10 October 2026. The database is updated every week, on Friday. Only the official text is authoritative.

Going further

Lexicon: Written procedure (UPC), Court fees and costs (UPC).

Source and translations

Official source: Unified Patent Court registry link recorded in the record
Original language: not recorded
Translation available: no translation recorded the firm’s French record is a summary, not a translation
Date checked: not recorded

Only the official text is authoritative. A machine translation is never presented as official, republishing a third-party document requires a verified basis in rights, and a link to the source is preferred.

Follow this case

Proceedings, related decisions, appeals, parties and patents as recorded in the registry and in the Dhenne Avocats corpus. Each link states its source.

Proceedings

No case number recorded in this record.

Parties

claimantHeraeus Electronics GmbH & Co. KG13 decisions in the corpus Follow this party

Exact name as it appears in the record, group affiliation only where sourced and dated.

Decisions in the same proceedings and documented appeals

No other decision in the corpus bears the same case number, and no appeal is documented in the corpus to date.

What the record states

Nature of the act: Generic application
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): Les délais de Heraeus courent du 18 mars 2025, date d'accès de son représentant aux pièces non caviardées. La procédure écrite prend fin le 22 mai 2025 et la prorogation est refusée.
Appeal: No appeal documented in the corpus, this does not mean that no appeal was lodged.
Instance: First-instance decision, whether it has become final is not recorded.

Patents mentioned

EP 3 215 288 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Scope: Dhenne Avocats corpus. Registry-based links are marked “official number”; links derived from the analyses are marked as such. An erroneous link can be withdrawn without deleting any record.

Patents and standards

Publication	Role in the dispute	Family	Standard and declaration	Pool	Sources
`EP 3 215 288` Sintered metal preparation and its use for joining components recorded proprietor: Heraeus Deutschland GmbH and Co KG	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 10 other decision(s): Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CoA, 16 September 2026) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, UPC_CFI_114/2024, 10 October 2025 · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 2 June 2025) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 26 February 2025) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 24 January 2025) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 2 December 2024) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, 14 November 2024) · Heraeus Electronics v Vibrantz (CFI, ORD_36668/2024, 25 September 2024	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet · European Patent Register existence and title of the publication checked on 30 October 2026 (Google Patents, Espacenet and Register links are not checked automatically) mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis

The statuses “asserted in litigation”, “declared essential”, “listed by a pool” and “essentiality examined by a court” are distinct and may coexist. Validity, infringement and technical essentiality are different questions. Scope: patents cited in the decisions of the Dhenne Avocats corpus, with no essentiality score or prediction.

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