Centripetal v Keysight Technologies (CFI, 20 August 2025)

Date	20 August 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Mannheim (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Application Rop 333
Registry reference	App_34743/2025 · ORD_35171/2025
Parties	Centripetal Limited

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.

Contact the firm

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By an order of 20 August 2025 (UPC_CFI_414/2024, App_34743/2025), the Mannheim Local Division (Judges Tochtermann, presiding and rapporteur, Böttcher, Knijff, and technically qualified Judge Attali), on a review request under Rule 333, upheld the judge-rapporteur’s refusal to allow Centripetal to file a further written pleading after the rejoinder in its infringement action against Keysight Technologies concerning EP 3 821 580. The order shows that the proximity of the hearing and the opportunities already given to the claimant weigh heavily against a new infringement reading at the end of the written procedure.

Question

May a claimant obtain leave under Rule 36 to file a further pleading setting out a new infringement reading based on a feature of the attacked embodiment, a few weeks before the oral hearing?

Decision

No. The panel exercised its discretion in the same way as the judge-rapporteur. A further pleading would call for a response from the defendants, which could not be due before early September because of the summer holidays, leaving too little time to prepare for the hearing on 9 and 10 October 2025. Centripetal had had ample opportunity to substantiate its case, its reply already containing three alternative infringement readings, and could not introduce a fifth reading so late. The AI Stack functionality had been launched in March 2025 and called for a prompt reaction. No res judicata risk arose. Leave to appeal was refused, the question turning on the particular circumstances of the case.

Key points for practice

A claimant that discovers a new feature of the attacked embodiment during the proceedings must act promptly. Rule 36 does not allow the written procedure to be reopened as the hearing approaches.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 36 and 333

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).

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

claimantCentripetal Limited11 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: Application Rop 333
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary): La demande de réexamen est rejetée : Centripetal ne peut pas déposer de mémoire supplémentaire introduisant une nouvelle lecture de la contrefaçon, et l'autorisation d'appel 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 3 821 580 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

Centripetal v Keysight (CFI, UPC_CFI_414/2025, 5 December 2025) cites this decision

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 3 821 580` Methods and systems for efficient network protection recorded proprietor: Centripetal Ltd	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 10 other decision(s): Centripetal v Palo Alto Networks (CoA, 4 February 2026) · Centripetal v Keysight (CFI, UPC_CFI_414/2025, 5 December 2025) · Centripetal v Keysight (CFI, UPC_CFI_414/2024, 5 December 2025) · Centripetal v Keysight Technologies (CFI, 5 September 2025) · Centripetal v Keysight Technologies (CoA, 1 September 2025) · Centripetal v Keysight Technologies (CFI, 1 August 2025) · Centripetal v Palo Alto Networks (CFI, 11 July 2025) · CENTRIPETAL v PALO ALTO NETWORKS (CoA, 28 May 2025)	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.

Receive an alert

Weekly summary of new records and substantive updates matching what you follow. Address confirmed by email, unsubscribe at any time, one email per week even where several of your follows match.