Around 200 judges, patent litigators, patent attorneys, other patent experts, representatives of scientific institutions and companies, government officials, The Hague mayor Jan van Zanen and Dutch minister of Economic Affairs and Climate, Micky Adriaansens, attended the opening ceremony of the Dutch local division of the Unified Patent Court today in The Hague. Minister Adriaansens stressed…
‘The patent community lives today after many dark years in the sunrise period in which owners of patents have to decide if after June 1st, they want to be on the sunny beaches of the UPC or prefer to live another 7 or 14 years in the dark forests of national patent litigation.’ Those were…
In an earlier post I explained the issues that the proposed EU Regulation on SEPs intends to address, and why neither the market nor the courts solve them. Here, I discuss three points of critique brought against the Proposal: that it would reduce innovation incentives; that a family-level essentiality assessment would be too imprecise; and…
The Unified Patent Court has announced that starting 29 May 2023 external users will be able to practice entry into force (EIF) functionalities on a dedicated CMS platform. The environment will be the same as the current sunrise practice CERUS, on which the EIF functionalities will be activated. There is no end date for the…
The Standard Essential Patents (SEPs) Regulation Proposal also known as the IP Action Plan formally issued by the European Commission today suggests groundbreaking changes to the standard essential patent landscape as we know it. The SEPs Regulation Proposal indicates the European Commission’s desire to establish four major requirements for SEPs holders and implementers. These are…
After years of preparation, the European Union’s draft legislation for a sweeping reform of the existing legal regime on supplementary protection certificates (SPCs), which includes the establishment of a centralized SPC filing and examination procedure as well as the introduction of a unitary SPC, has finally been published today on April 27, 2023. This draft…
The Unified Patent Court has designated the presiding judges of the central, local and regional divisions, as well as presiding judges of the relevant panels of the Court. By decision of the UPC’s presidium, which was published yesterday, the following judges were designated: Central division PARIS: Ms Florence Butin Central division MUNICH section: Ms Ulrike…
The start of the Unitary Patent system ‘is a big event with big economic consequence. Europe could reconstitute their economic relevance’ around it, says John White, Special Counsel of law firm Harness IP in the US. In an interview he told Kluwer IP Law not everybody seems aware yet about the upcoming game changer, but…
The European Commission’s recently leaked Proposal for a Regulation on standard-essential patents (SEPs), summarized here by Enrico Bonadio and Dyuti Pandya, establishes a framework for transparent SEP licensing. Some have criticized the proposal, claiming among other things that it is unnecessary, harmful to innovation, and difficult to implement. Much of this critique is unjustified. More…
It is totally unacceptable to strip the competencies of the third seat of the central division of the Unified Patent Court now that it will not go to London but most likely to Milan. Lorenzo Montanari, executive director of the Property Rights Alliance (PRA), has said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law. Last…
