Since the start of June 2023, 21 new technically qualified judges have been appointed to the Unified Patent Court and more will follow later this year. According to a UPC announcement, candidates will be contacted for interviews in the upcoming weeks.
Before taking up their duties, the newly appointed judges take an oath in open court. For this purpose, open court sessions were scheduled at the Central Division Sections in Munich and Paris on 16 August. In Paris another session is planned for 5 September, whereas the Nordic-Baltic Regional Division will have an open court session on 30 August. The list of 21 judges can be found here.
The UPC opened its doors on the first of June 2023. A total of 37 legally qualified judges and 68 technically qualified judges have been appointed so far.
Patent attorney Joeri Beetz launched a UPC search website, which shows that up to last week 35 infringement cases had been filed. The claimant in 12 of them is Panasonic, in what website JUVE Patent describes as the first major dispute over mobile communications and SEPs at the UPC. The cases were filed at the local divisions in Mannheim and Munich.
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I gave a quick look at two Panasonic patents and I am still of the idea that a competitor would be happy to pay license fees for a real INVENTION or to invest for finding them selves an alternative way, not least because they expect a same behaviour from their competitors, but when I see such patents I wonder why you should bother staying away from them … but at the end only good companies manage to be also good players in that game, so nothing wrong with it
No side corporate affiliation this time… Technical judges recruited mostly from existing patent institutions.