Panasonic Holdings Corporation v Xiaomi Technology UK Ltd & Ors

At a pre-trial review, the court may permit a party to answer a late-raised issue where refusing permission would cause injustice, particularly where the issue is important to the trial. The response should remain proportionate to the issue and be confined strictly to addressing it. Case-management decisions must balance procedural fairness, the importance of the issue and the need to preserve the trial timetable.

The judgment concerned the management of a complex patent trial between Panasonic and Xiaomi and Oppo. The court considered the allocation of time for opening and closing submissions, fact evidence and expert evidence.

A late issue arose from Xiaomi’s evidence concerning the reliability of a proposed comparable licence, known as the Red licence. Xiaomi intended to argue that a disclosure document made the licence unreliable and that it should be rejected as a comparable. A similar point had previously been raised concerning the Yellow comparable. Panasonic sought permission to respond with further fact and expert evidence.

1. The court set the trial timetable. Oral openings were allowed on 31 October and 1 November 2024, fact evidence was to begin on 4 November, and closing submissions were scheduled for the week beginning 18 November, subject to later adjustment if required.
2. Long and detailed written closing submissions were regarded as useful, whereas lengthy written opening submissions were regarded as potentially unhelpful. The parties were encouraged to keep written openings shorter and simpler, while no formal page limit was imposed.
3. The late challenge to the Red licence was sufficiently important that it would be unjust to prevent Panasonic from responding. The court did not need to decide whether Xiaomi could or should have raised the point earlier in order to reach that practical case-management decision.
4. The response had to remain proportionate. The issue was important, but it was only one issue among many in a complex trial and was not to be allowed to become disproportionate.
5. Panasonic was permitted to serve fact evidence by 30 September 2024 and expert evidence by 7 October 2024. The permission was strictly limited to responding to the Red licence and related points, and did not extend to other matters.