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ZTE v Samsung Electronics (CFI, 13 January 2026)

Date13 January 2026
CourtCFI
DivisionMannheim (DE) Local Division
Type of actionApplication RoP262A
Case number(s)UPC_CFI_850/2024
Registry referenceUPC_CFI_850/2024
PartiesZTE Corporation v. Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd. et. al.

Official decision (PDF) · UPC registry entry

Case timeline

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 · 19 October 2026

Our analysis

Summary

A licence agreement concluded with a third party is classified as highly confidential information, access being reserved to three designated persons of the claimant, its economic expert and that expert’s team, and the representatives registered in the parallel proceedings, exhaustively listed. Abstract discussion of FRAND issues remains public, the public being excluded from the hearing only on account of the protected material itself. The request to extend the written procedure under Rule 36 is rejected, the hearing being scheduled about two months later. A conditional order for production of the licence agreement is issued, the party requesting production being able to waive it within the time limit set. The written procedure is closed.

Why it matters

The decision shows how the regime derived from the Court of Appeal’s case law is built in practice, combining confidentiality, compelled production and timetable, and how access extends to representatives engaged in parallel proceedings. It follows the line opened by Daedalus Prime v Xiaomi on 12 February 2025.

Practical point

Request access for the representatives registered in the parallel proceedings in the very first application: consistency across fora depends on it, and the extension is not guaranteed if requested late.

Summary prepared by Dhenne Avocats. Only the official text of the decision is authoritative.

Decisions in the same proceedings

Going further

Lexicon: Standard essential patent (SEP), FRAND offer and counter-offer, Injunctions and standard essential patents, Confidentiality club.

Dhenne Avocats blog: FRAND at the UPC: What the Court Has Decided, What Remains Open.

Publications by Matthieu Dhenne: Munich’s FRAND Guidelines: A Compass Drawn Too Finely, Tesla v. InterDigital and the FRAND Undertaking Inside the Pool (Kluwer Patent Blog).

Further reading: M. Dhenne, “Calculation of FRAND Royalties: An Overview of Practices Around the World”, European Intellectual Property Review 2019, vol. 41, no. 12, p. 754. M. Dhenne, “Conversant v LG: What about FRAND in France?”, European Intellectual Property Review 2019, vol. 41, no. 9, p. 585.

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

  • UPC_CFI_850/2024 official number

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Parties

Exact name as it appears in the record, group affiliation only where sourced and dated.

Decisions in the same proceedings and documented appeals

  1. 23 December 2025 ZTE v Samsung Electronics (CFI, 23 December 2025) Infringement Action · UPC_CFI_850/2024

    Les demandes de Samsung tendant à de nouvelles écritures et à la production d’un accord de licence conclu avec un tiers sont rejetées comme tardives. Un mémoire complémentaire limité aux négociations récentes est autorisé avant l’audience.

  2. 13 January 2026 ZTE v Samsung Electronics (CFI, 13 January 2026) Application RoP262A · UPC_CFI_850/2024

What the record states

Nature of the act
Application RoP262A
Outcome (Dhenne Avocats summary)
Un accord de licence conclu avec un tiers reçoit la qualification d'information hautement confidentielle, l'accès étant réservé à trois personnes désignées de la demanderesse, à son expert économique et à l'équipe de celui-ci, ainsi qu'aux représentants inscrits dans les procédures parallèles, limitativement énumérés. La discussion abstraite des questions FRAND demeure publique, l'exclusion du public à l'audience n'intervenant qu'à raison des éléments protégés eux-mêmes. La demande d'extension de la procédure écrite fondée sur la règle 36 est rejetée, l'audience étant fixée à environ deux mois. Une ordonnance conditionnelle de production de l'accord de licence est rendue, la partie sollicitant la production pouvant y renoncer dans le délai imparti. La procédure écrite est close.
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.

Related decisions cited in the analyses

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.

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