Decathlon v OWIM (CFI, 27 August 2025)

Date	27 August 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Mannheim (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_35089/2025 · ORD_35195/2025
Parties	Decathlon

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 an order of 27 August 2025 (UPC_CFI_521/2024, ORD_35195/2025), the judge-rapporteur of the Mannheim Local Division, at Decathlon’s request, disregarded the part of the rejoinder filed by the defendants OWIM, Lidl and Kaufland in the application to amend proceedings that addressed the validity of EP 1 697 604 as granted (pages 3 to 14). Even presented as a mere summary, that part went beyond what Rule 32.3 permits. The written procedure was due to close on 1 September 2025.

Question

May a rejoinder contain a summary of the arguments on the validity of the patent as granted, without new points, beyond the matters raised in the reply?

Decision

No. The Court may disregard any step or argument that does not comply with the Rules (Rules 9.2 and 36). Rule 32.3 confines the rejoinder to matters raised in the reply, and that limit applies to any excess content, not only to new arguments or facts. Whether it is a summary makes no difference. Allowing such summaries would favour the revocation claimant, as the proprietor has no equivalent further pleading. If a summary would help, the judge-rapporteur may ask for one (Rules 101.1, 103.1(d) and 104(e)).

Key points for practice

Practical point: a rejoinder in amendment proceedings must stay strictly within the reply, an unsolicited summary of the validity case is liable to be disregarded.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 9.2, 32.3, 35(a), 36, 101.1, 103.1(d) and 104(e)

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.

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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

claimantDecathlonFollow 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): La partie de la duplique consacrée à la validité du brevet tel que délivré est écartée, la règle 32.3 interdisant tout contenu excédant la réplique, même sous forme de résumé.
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 1 697 604 mentioned in: Dhenne Avocats analysis Follow this patent

Related decisions cited in the analyses

TRUMPF Laser- und Systemtechnik v IPG Laser (CFI, ORD_35948/2025, 12 September 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 1 697 604`	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified)	not recorded	not recorded	not recorded	Espacenet links not checked 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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