ZTE v Samsung Electronics (CFI, 23 December 2025)

Dhenne Avocats · 10 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

In ZTE Corporation’s action for infringement of EP 3 905 730 against six Samsung group companies (UPC_CFI_850/2024), coupled with a FRAND counterclaim by Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. (App_22286/2025), the judge-rapporteur of the Mannheim Local Division rejects as late Samsung’s request to file further written pleadings (Rule 36 RoP) and its request for a production order concerning a licence agreement concluded with a third party. He announces that the written procedure will close after 30 December 2025 and allows each party one supplementary brief of no more than 30 pages, confined to new developments in the licence negotiations. The order shows how the Division manages the FRAND debate when negotiations continue during the proceedings.

Question

Do continuing licence negotiations, and a third party’s refusal to consent to disclosure of its agreement, justify extending the written procedure or ordering production of that agreement at an advanced stage?

Decision

The front-loaded procedure requires parties to make their requests early. Filed some two months after their pleadings, Samsung’s requests are late, and Samsung should have acted at the latest with its reply or immediately after its request for production of ZTE’s licences was dismissed on 18 September 2025. That the agreements are known from parallel national proceedings makes no difference. Ongoing negotiations do not in principle justify extending the written procedure under Rule 36 RoP, as it would otherwise never end: a supplementary brief, to be filed by 3 March 2026, takes its place, its admission being left to the decision on the merits. The admissibility of the amendment to the FRAND counterclaim is deferred until after the hearing, and no interim conference is planned.

Key points for practice

• A party wishing to produce a licence agreement subject to confidentiality should seek the third party’s consent, and then apply to the Division, early enough to fit the timetable of the written procedure.
• Developments in FRAND negotiations during the proceedings are dealt with through a limited supplementary brief before the hearing, not through further rounds of pleadings.

Provisions applied

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court

Art. 43

Rules of Procedure

Rules 9, 35, 36, 101, 105, 111, 263 and 331

Case law cited

Panasonic v Xiaomi, Mannheim Local Division, 3 September 2025, UPC_CFI_219/2023.

Related decisions

• ZTE v Samsung Electronics, 13 January 2026, later order on an application under Rule 262A RoP.

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.