DISH Technologies v AYLO PREMIUM (CFI, 20 October 2024)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

By order of 20 October 2024 (UPC_CFI_471/2023, ACT_594191/2023, App_46519/2024, ORD_47065/2024), the judge-rapporteur of the Mannheim Local Division (Judge Böttcher) refused the application by DISH Technologies and Sling TV for the AYLO group companies and two other defendants to produce the source code of the media players used by their streaming services, in the action for indirect infringement of EP 2 479 680. Two orders of the same day dismiss parallel requests for information under Rule 191 RoP.

Question

Can an order to produce evidence (Art. 59 UPCA, Rule 190 RoP) be obtained where the applicant has not used the evidence reasonably available to it and the usefulness of production remains uncertain?

Decision

Production requires the applicant to have presented the evidence reasonably available to it and to have identified the evidence held by the other side. The judge weighs the interests involved, in the light of Art. 6(1) of Directive 2004/48. At this stage the measure is disproportionate: it is unclear whether the defendants will effectively dispute the allegations on the source code, and the pleadings refer to it only as additional support. Above all, the claimants have not exhausted the available evidence: as for two services already analysed, they could use recordings made with a web debugging proxy and the public Microsoft Edge source code for the other services, taking out subscriptions if necessary, and the Google Chrome source code appears to be public. The state of argument on construction, infringement and validity does not justify placing that burden on the defendants.

Key points for practice

• Practical point: before seeking production of the opponent’s source code, a claimant should exhaust the technical routes open to it (network captures, public code, subscriptions).

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Arts. 43, 59 and 73(2)(a)

Rules of Procedure

Rules 171.2, 190, 220.1 and 224.1

Directive 2004/48/EC

Art. 6(1)

Case law cited

Guangdong OPPO Mobile Telecommunications v Panasonic, Court of Appeal, 24 September 2024

Related decisions

• Sling TV, 20 October 2024, parallel order refusing information on the encoding of video files.
• Sling TV, 20 October 2024, parallel order refusing information on content delivery networks.

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.