Dai Nippon Printing v Zapp (UPC_CFI_466/2025)

• The claimant (Dai Nippon) brought infringement proceedings against the defendants (Zapp) in relation to Zapp's offering and selling metal plates/foils. This was a procedural order allowing a short extension for the filing of the defence to allow Zapp to include the results of laboratory tests.
• The Düsseldorf LD granted a one-week extension for the defence to be filed. This extension was to allow Zapp to receive the results of an analysis of their products by a laboratory and give them "just over a week…to evaluate the results and include them in the pleadings to be prepared". The court held it was sufficient as significant parts of the pleadings could be completed before the test results were available.
• A further extension to allow Zapp time to rely on results from a second laboratory that would take longer was refused. In this case, Zapp failed to show that the results were essential or that they could not have been obtained sooner.
• The Düsseldorf LD rejected Zapp's argument that the time required for Dai Nippon's analysis of the product before bringing its claim was relevant to how long it should have, including for reasons of equality of arms. The court stated that Dai Nippon's analysis was not subject to the time limits stipulated in the RoP and therefore did not need to be expedited by it. Accordingly, the time it took was irrelevant.

This analysis is based on a machine translation of a decision not available in English.