The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is a planned future court common to EU Member States which participate in the Unitary Patent system, and it will be part of their judicial system. After a transitional period of 7 years or 14 years at most, it will have exclusive competence in respect of traditional European patents and European patents with unitary effect (Unitary Patents). The UPC is based on the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The Unitary Patent system and the UPC are planned to start functioning once certain ratification conditions have been fulfilled.
Tempus fugit. It’s hard to believe that the UPC opened for business over two years ago and, after a relatively slow start, is now flourishing. It would be fair to say that, with certain notable exceptions, life sciences companies have not engaged with the UPC as enthusiastically as other sectors to date. Therefore certain issues…
One of the most highly debated issues at the UPC before its commencement was the question, how the UPC would deal with validity of patents – would it essentially take over the EPO’s course? Or would it deviate from that? From the first judgments, many commentators drew the conclusion that at least when it comes…
Yesterday, I shared some early figures from the UPC Court of Appeal, offering a glimpse into how the Court operates two years after its launch. But those reflections lingered long after I closed my laptop. They kept me up — long enough to return to a thornier, more theoretical question that has remained unresolved since…
Introduction: A Concert Interrupted Imagine a Rammstein concert—tight rhythms, explosive precision, and overwhelming power. That’s what many expected from the German divisions of the UPC: efficiency, control, and dominance. But two years into the life of the Court of Appeal, that expectation has begun to unravel. What we see instead is a more nuanced performance—less…
On 14 May, the EPO published the study Standards and the European patent system. The study seeks to improve transparency in the relationship between standards and patents in Europe, by providing insights from an EPO dataset linking patents and standards. The study also provides early observations into SEP litigation under the UPC. I will very…
Much like Black Sabbath’s iconic track “Paranoid”—an anthem whose unsettling riffs once left skeptics bewildered—I find myself contemplating the equally discordant landscape of Standard Essential Patents (SEPs). As someone known for my passion for both music and the intricacies of patent law, I see uncanny parallels between the dissonant chords of early heavy metal and…
As is well known in the life sciences community in Europe, both the Commission and the Parliament have proposed reforms to the Medicines Directive which, if implemented, would serve to broaden the ambit of the Bolar exemption in the European Union. It is understood that the European Council is now considering these reforms and it…
“I still haven’t found what I’m looking for.” U2’s iconic lyric might capture how patent holders feel when an anti-suit injunction (ASI) from a foreign court threatens to derail enforcement in Europe. Rather than yielding, European courts often respond with a swift countermeasure: the anti-anti-suit injunction (AASI). An AASI prevents litigants from seeking or enforcing…
G 1/24 addresses the extent to which the description can be used to interpret the claims. As previously discussed, it looks set to be one of the most consequential EPO decisions of the decade. The hearing in G 1/24 took place on 28 March, with the opponent advocating a new “diamond standard” that the “description…
Last Tuesday, the big news in the patent world was of course that the UPC’s Court of First Instance (CFI), Düsseldorf Division, in case 355/2023, found that if the defendant is domiciled in a Contracting Member State (in the case at hand, Germany), the UPC has jurisdiction to hear the infringement action in respect of…
