Papst Licensing v Ecovacs Home Service Robotics (CFI, 9 September 2025)

Date	9 September 2025
Court	CFI
Division	Munich (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_35786/2025 · ORD_36072/2025
Parties	ECOVACS Europe GmbH

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 9 September 2025 (UPC_CFI_491/2025, App_35786/2025), the Munich Local Division rejected the application for extension of time limits filed by ECOVACS Europe, second defendant in the infringement action brought by Papst Licensing on European patent EP 3 494 446. ECOVACS Europe wanted its timetable aligned with that of the other defendants, which had not yet been served. The order confirms that an extension opposed by the other side requires a genuine need to prepare the defence. Procedural convenience alone is not enough.

Question

May a defendant that has been served obtain, over the claimant’s objection, an extension of the time limits for the statement of defence and the preliminary objection so as to align the proceedings with those against co-defendants not yet served?

Decision

No. The decisions relied on by ECOVACS Europe were mostly based on a joint request to unify time limits in exchange for deemed service, and there was no such agreement here (paragraph 1). An extension without consent remains possible but calls for a balancing of interests (paragraph 2). ECOVACS Europe did not claim it needed more time for its defence. Unifying the proceedings is a legitimate interest but carries less weight. The other defendants may file their defence together with it, time limits can still be adjusted and severance remains possible (paragraph 3, Rule 9.3(a)). The second defendant has 20 days to comment on Papst Licensing’s other requests.

Key points for practice

Practical point: an opposed extension request must show a need specific to preparing the defence, aligning the timetable among co-defendants is not sufficient.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 9.2, 9.3(a), 102.2 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), 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

claimantECOVACS Europe GmbHFollow 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 demande de prorogation des délais de défense et d'exception préliminaire présentée par ECOVACS Europe est rejetée, faute de besoin propre à la préparation de la défense.
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 3 494 446 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 3 494 446`	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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