Rule 190 – Order to produce evidence

1. Where a party has presented reasonably available and plausible evidence in support of its claims and has, in substantiating those claims, specified evidence which lies in the control of the other party or a third party, the Court may on a reasoned request by the party specifying such evidence, order that other party or third party to produce such evidence. For the protection of confidential information the Court may order that the evidence be disclosed to certain named persons only and be subject to appropriate terms of non-disclosure.

2. During the written and interim procedures, a party may request such an order to produce evidence.

3. The judge-rapporteur may make such order in the written procedure or in the interim procedure having given the other/third party an opportunity to be heard.

4. An order to produce evidence shall in particular specify:

(a) under which conditions, in what form and within what time period the evidence shall be produced;

(b) any sanction which may be imposed if the evidence is not produced according to the order.

5. Where the Court orders a third party to produce evidence, the interests of that third party shall be duly taken into account.

6. An order to produce evidence shall be subject to the provisions of Rules 179.3, 287 and 288. The order shall indicate that an appeal may be brought in accordance with Article 73 of the Agreement and Rule 220.1.

7. If a party fails to comply with an order to produce evidence, the Court shall take such failure into account when deciding on the issue in question.

Relation with Agreement: Article 59

Case Law

IPPT20240214, UPC CFI, LD Mannheim, Panasonic v Xiaomi
Submission of SEP Patent Licenses. There is typically a recognisable need for confidentiality of business-related information contained in licence agreements and only permit submission upon a court order, which may require involving the respective license agreement partner in the proceedings. Incremental 13-step procedure enables the parties to obtain comprehensive protection of secrets and allows the parties to submit the documents in the protected proceedings even without a court order to produce them (Rule 262A RoP, Rule 190 RoP). The confidentiality regime (Rule 262 RoP, Rule 262A RoP) is organised in the following 13 steps [....] (see also the order of the Düsseldorf Local Chamber of 14 February 2024 [[in 10x Genomics v Curio Bioscience, IPPT20240214]..Against the background of this regime, a decision on the requests pursuant to Rule 190 of the Rules of Procedure is not intended for the time being.