Daedalus v Xiaomi & Anor (UPC_CoA_621/2024)
Decision date:
12 February 2025
Osborne Clarke summary
- The underlying claim was an infringement action brought by Daedalus against Xiaomi and MediaTek, alleging that they had infringed its patent by offering and selling smartphones that contain certain types of processors made by MediaTek.
- Xiaomi filed a statement of defence and lodged an application requesting that access to certain highlighted passages in its defence and written witness statement submitted with it be restricted because it disclosed information about the architecture of MediaTek's processors.
- The judge-rapporteur of the Hamburg LD granted provisional protection for the confidential information and restricted Daedalus' access to the relevant passages to its UPC legal representatives. Daedalus subsequently requested that its managing director and two US attorney be granted access to the confidential information. The judge-rapporteur extended access to the managing director but not the US attorneys. Daedalus sought a procedural review of the order, which was rejected by the panel of the Hamburg LD. Following this, Daedalus appealed to the Court of Appeal, requesting that its two US attorneys be granted access.
- The Court of Appeal held that access should not be restricted unnecessarily and shall include, at least, one natural person from each party and the respective lawyers (Rule 262A.6 RoP). Whether a particular person is granted full access depends on the role of that person in the proceedings, the relevance of the confidential information to the performance of that role and the trustworthiness of the person.
- It is not required that they are employee of a party or a representative within the meaning of Article 48 UPCA. Therefore, the fact that the US attorneys were not employees of Daedalus or UPC representatives did not preclude them from having full access to the confidential information. Full access was granted.
- The Hamburg LD had assumed that Daedalus was seeking access for its US attorneys to enable them to use the information in parallel US proceedings but that was not the case. Daedalus' US attorneys were involved in these proceedings before the UPC by providing technical input. Although they were also involved in the parallel US proceedings, the confidentiality regime imposed by the Hamburg LD meant that persons granted access to the confidential information could only use it for the purposes of the UPC litigation. On appeal, Daedalus expressly confirmed that its US attorneys would only use the confidential information for the UPC proceedings. The Court of Appeal said that the US attorneys were trustworthy as they were bound by strict ethical rules of professional conduct for lawyers.
Issue
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