Centripetal v Palo Alto Networks (CFI, 25 July 2025)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By order of 25 July 2025 (UPC_CFI_636/2025), Judge Tochtermann, judge-rapporteur of the Mannheim Local Division, rejected Centripetal’s request for a penalty payment against Palo Alto Networks and for an order requiring it to report any deletion or change of technical documentation, following an unproductive saisie. The order defines the scope of the defendant’s duty to cooperate: it must tolerate the inspection and give limited help, but need not extend its employees’ access rights or bring to the premises a system that is not there. For applicants, the lesson lies in describing the premises precisely in the application.

Facts and procedure

Centripetal, proprietor of EP 3 281 580, had its saisie application rejected by the Local Division on 3 March 2025, in particular for insufficient facts on where the network solution could be found. On 28 May 2025, the Court of Appeal granted it in modified form, allowing inspection of Palo Alto Networks’ system at the Munich premises named in the application. The Local Division issued its order on referral on 3 June 2025, amended on 9 July 2025.

Executed on 11 July 2025 at a co-working space in Munich, the measure yielded nothing: only a sales employee was present, without access to the relevant system layers, no firewall, server or technical documentation was found, and Palo Alto Networks’ counsel refused to have the US headquarters set up access rights for the inspection. Centripetal sought penalty payments. The defendant argued that it had complied with the order and that the premises belonged to a sales subsidiary rather than a branch.

The applicable law

The judge recalls that the subject of the inspection must be described as concretely as possible, for proportionality and effective enforcement (paragraph 6), and that the premises must be precisely defined in view of the defendant’s fundamental rights, the inspection not extending to unlisted locations other than closely connected adjacent ones (paragraph 7). He relies on Article 60(3) UPCA, Rule 199 RoP and the rationale of Rule 192.2(b) RoP, together with Article 7 of Directive 2004/48, Article 8 ECHR and Article 7 of the Charter.

Question

Does a defendant breach a saisie order, so as to justify a penalty payment, where it does not give access from the inspected premises to an IT system hosted elsewhere?

Decision

No. Only items present at the premises may be inspected. The defendant must tolerate the measure and give limited active help (unlocking a door, entering a password), but inspection of a digital system is confined to what is accessible on site, with no duty to raise access rights beyond ordinary business needs or to bring hardware (paragraph 8). Palo Alto Networks therefore did not have to extend a sales employee’s rights to reach the encrypted security solution (paragraph 9), all the more so as those rights could be changed only by the US parent, outside the scope of Regulation 2020/1783, and the applicant had wrongly described the premises as a branch (paragraph 10).

The Court of Appeal’s order, narrower than the original application, can only be read as limiting the inspection to the system physically present (paragraphs 11 and 12). In the absence of any breach, the penalty and the reporting request are rejected (paragraph 13). Centripetal bears the costs of the enforcement proceedings.

Key points for practice

• The defendant’s duty is essentially passive: tolerate the inspection and give limited help, without recreating on site a system hosted elsewhere.
• IT access rights are measured against the ordinary needs of the business carried on at the listed premises.
• A saisie order is construed within the limits set by the court that made it, here the Court of Appeal.
• Practical point: the application must identify precisely the entity and premises where the system is located, a mistake about the nature of the premises (subsidiary rather than branch) can render the saisie fruitless and leave the applicant with the costs of enforcement.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Art. 60(3)

Rules of Procedure

Rules 192.2(b) and 199

Directive 2004/48/EC

Art. 7

Other provisions

Art. 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, Art. 7 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Regulation (EU) 2020/1783 on the taking of evidence

Case law cited

Centripetal v Palo Alto Networks, Court of Appeal, 28 May 2025 (UPC_CoA_239/2025), C-Kore Systems v Novawell, Paris Local Division, 1 March 2024 (UPC_CFI_397/2023)

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.