Rule 4 – Lodging of documents

1. Written pleadings and other documents shall be signed and lodged at the Registry or relevant subregistry in electronic form. Parties shall make use of the official forms available online. The receipt of documents shall be confirmed by the automatic issue of an electronic receipt, which shall indicate the date and local time of receipt.

2. Where it is not possible to lodge a document electronically for the reason that the electronic case management system of the Court has ceased to function a party may lodge a document in hard-copy form at the Registry or a sub-registry. An electronic copy of the document shall be lodged as soon as practicable thereafter.

Relation with Agreement: Article 44

Case law

IPPT20231011, UPC CFI, CD Munich, Astellas v Healios

Parties are under an obligation to use the CMS and the dedicated workflows in the CMS to file their submissions (see e.g. Rule 4.1 RoP). It is the sole responsibility of the parties that this is done properly and timely. The Court will try to be helpful where possible in resolving CMS related issues. Submissions and correspondence outside of the CMS should be limited to an absolute minimum.The notification generated by the system is the “means of electronic communication” as meant in Rule 278.1 RoP or, as the case may be, the “relevant electronic message” as meant in Rule 271.6 RoP.

IPPT20230929, UPC CFI, LD Munich, Edwards Lifesciences v Meril

Use of official forms available online, which also include separate workflows within the CMS, required (Rule 4(1) RoP).  In this respect, due to the special challenges that the new system poses for all parties to the proceedings, we refrain this time from treating the opposition and the other requests as inadmissible only because they were filed as a "statement of defence" in the workflow of the infringement proceedings (Art. 42.2 UPCA). It would have been correct to file the opposition in a separate workflow as a "preliminary objection". 

IPPT20230824, UPC CFI, CD Munich, Sanofi-Aventis v Amgen

Preliminary objection against competence of Central Division in revocation action rejected because revocation action was already brought before the Central Division (article 33(4) UPCA). Statement of Revocation in revocation action was lodged in hard-copy on 1 June 2023 at 11.26, prior to the Statement of Claim in the infringement action at 11.45. The Registry is the Registry of the entire UPC (article 10 UPCA, Rule 4 RoP). The Registry, being the Registry of the Court, including therefore being the Registry of the CD Munich, functions as a ‘receiving mailbox’ for the entire UPC, especially under the circumstances of Rule 4.2 RoP.