The Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court has been making ‘good progress’ regarding the ratification of the UPCA. In an update posted on its website today, the Preparatory Committee announces: ‘We now have 14 full ratifications and more in the pipeline, making it reasonable to expect that we will begin operations with closer to…

In the first period of functioning of the Unified Patent Court, the judge-rapporteur – who has important powers in the new system – should as much as possible revert issues to the panel of judges as a whole. This is beneficial for the system and can prevent forum shopping, according to the Belgian judge Sam…

In its research concerning the complaint that was filed against ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) gave a series of mainly German institutions and associations the opportunity to submit their views. A spokesman of the Court, the Bundesverfassungsgericht, declared in answer to questions of Kluwer IP Law that a…

The Federal Constitutional Court in Germany has started investigating the constitutional complaint that was filed earlier this year against the German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. As German attorney at law Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna reported last week, the Court ‘most recently sent the constitutional complaint (earlier reported on by Kluwer IP Law…

Lithuania completed the ratification formalities of the Unified Patent Court Agreement on 24 August 2017 by depositing its instrument of ratification with the secretariat of the EU Council in Brussels. It is the 14th member state to do so. Earlier this month, Estonia ratified the UPCA.  Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta,…

The surprising request by the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC) to the German President to wait with his executing of the UPC ratification law, pending the outcome of a – heretofore unknown – constitutional complaint, has made many people wonder what is behind this constitutional complaint and on which alleged violations of the German Basic…

Estonia has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement. According to the website of the European Council, it completed the ratification formalities on 1 August 2017. Estonia joins Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Finland, France, Italy, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal and Sweden as one of the thirteen countries who have completed their ratification processes. Ratification by…

The UPC IT team has called on business and service providers to provide information about how they want to integrate their systems with the case management system (CMS) of the UPC, and what services they plan to provide their clients. ‘As an initial step the team would like to hear from those whose responsibility it…

UPDATE with quotes of the press conference of Michel Barnier at the bottom of this blogpost Will London’s pharmaceuticals and life sciences section of the Unified Patent Court have to be relocated post-Brexit? The EU will investigate this as part of the Brexit negotiations. This has been reported by ScienceBusiness.net. According to the website, the…