Panasonic Holdings v Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications (CFI, 10 July 2024)

Date	10 July 2024
Court	CFI
Division	Munich (DE) Local Division
Type of action	Generic application
Registry reference	App_39247/2024 · ORD_40297/2024
Parties	Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp. Ltd.

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 order of 10 July 2024 (UPC_CFI_221/2023, ACT_545620/2023, ORD_40297/2024), the Munich Local Division (M. Zigann, presiding and rapporteur, T. Pichlmaier, A. Kupecz, K. Roselinger), on the application of Guangdong OPPO and OROPE Germany, defendants in Panasonic’s infringement action on EP 3 024 163, held that the time limit for the Rejoinder had not started to run, as the Reply had been filed with redacted passages to be completed later. The applications to extend the other time limits were rejected.

Question

Does the time limit for the Rejoinder run from the filing of a Reply in which certain passages are redacted and reserved for later submissions?

Decision

No. Filing a Reply redacted in this way is inadmissible, as the Mannheim and Munich Local Divisions have held, and the redacted passages could be treated as not filed, a later filing then falling under Rule 9.2 RoP, the Division nevertheless makes an exception, as the UPC is addressing the issue for the first time. The time limit for the Rejoinder runs only from service of a fully unredacted Reply, so that the defendants can respond once and with full knowledge. The Rules of Procedure do not provide for a split Rejoinder. By contrast, the time limits for replying on the counterclaim for revocation and the application to amend have started to run: they rest on the defendants’ decision to challenge validity, which is independent of the competition law defence, and Rule 29(d) RoP does not change this.

Key points for practice

Practical point: a Reply containing reserved passages does not trigger the Rejoinder time limit, but leaves the separate time limits on the counterclaim for revocation unaffected.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure: Rules 9.2 and 29(d)
Case law cited: Mannheim Local Division, 13 June 2024, UPC_CFI_219/2023, Munich Local Division, 4 July 2024, UPC_CFI_220/2023

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.

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

claimantGuangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications Corp. Ltd.24 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): Le délai de duplique ne court qu'à compter de la signification d'une réplique entièrement non occultée. Les délais relatifs à la demande reconventionnelle en nullité et à la modification du brevet courent et ne sont pas prorogés.
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 3 024 163 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 3 024 163` Radio communication device and constellation control method recorded proprietor: Panasonic Corp	Mentioned in the analysis (role not qualified) Also mentioned in 9 other decision(s): Panasonic Holdings v Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications (CFI, OR · Panasonic Holdings v Xiaomi (CFI, 26 September 2024) · Panasonic Holdings v Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications (CFI, 2 · Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecomm v Panasonic (CFI, 6 July 2024) · Panasonic Holdings v Xiaomi (CFI, ORD_26378/2024, 4 July 2024) · Panasonic Holdings v Xiaomi (CFI, ORD_18301/2024, 4 July 2024) · Panasonic Holdings v Xiaomi (CFI, ORD_39924/2024, 4 July 2024) · Panasonic v Xiaomi (CFI, 4 December 2023)	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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