10x Genomics v Bruker Spatial Biology (CFI, 11 April 2025)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By procedural order of 11 April 2025 (UPC_CFI_298/2023, ACT_568963/2023), the Munich Local Division (Judges Zigann, presiding, Kupecz and Pichlmaier) ordered the immediate continuation of the written procedure in the infringement action on EP 4 108 782 brought by 10x Genomics and President and Fellows of Harvard College against Bruker Spatial Biology and three other defendants. It set deadlines for replies to the submissions of 9 April 2025 (11 June, 11 July and 11 August 2025) and kept the oral hearing of 17 and 18 September 2025, despite an appeal pending before the Court of Appeal on the number of auxiliary requests.

Question

Should the division wait for the outcome of the appeal on auxiliary requests, as the Court of Appeal had suggested, now that the claimant had cut its 55 auxiliary requests down to four?

Decision

Four auxiliary requests are indisputably a reasonable number under Rule 30.1(c), which creates a new situation that the Court of Appeal’s suggestion could not have anticipated. The division weighed that reduced number, nearly two years of delay caused by stays, the agreed hearing date, its full calendar and the parties’ right to be heard within a reasonable time. According to the order, the longer proceedings have lasted, the more weight that right carries when deciding whether to continue.

Key points for practice

• Cutting auxiliary requests to a reasonable number may remove the obstacle to continuing the proceedings despite a pending appeal on the point.
• The time already elapsed increases the weight of the right to be heard within a reasonable time in the exercise of case-management discretion.

Provisions applied

Rules of Procedure

Rules 30.1(c) and 333

Case law cited

No UPC decision is cited.

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.