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.
Germany and Slovenia have ratified the Protocol on the Provisional Application (PPA) of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. According to a report of the UPC Preparatory Committee, the German government deposited the instrument of ratification for the PPA on 27 September 2021. It wrote: “This is a decisive step on the way to the establishment…
Recruitment of judges and top officials of the Unified Patent Court, training of staff and work on the CMS are some of the tasks that lay ahead now that the Period of Provisional Application of the UPC is approaching. Alexander Ramsay, chairman of the UPC Preparatory Committee, has said this in an interview with Kluwer…
The Unified Patent Court will open its doors for cases around mid-2022. That is the expectation of the UPC Preparatory Committee, which has published a time plan for the Provisional Application Period (PAP) and start of the UPC today. According to the plan, the PAP will have to be approximately eight months “to conclude all the work…
The legislation which enables Germany to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement has entered into force. It was published in the Federal Law Gazette on Thursday 12 August 2021 and came into force a day later. The development follows the dismissal, last month by the German constitutional court, of two requests for an interim injunction against…
After a delay of almost four years, the route to German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement has been reopened by the decision of the Federal Constitutional Court of 23 June 2021, which was published yesterday. The FCC’s rejection of two applications for an interim injunction against the UPCA ratification bills means the German…
Two applications for preliminary injunctions against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement have been rejected. The German Federal Constitutional Court has announced this in a press release. “Order of 23 June 2021 2 BvR 2216/20, 2 BvR 2217/20 In an order published today, the Second Senate of the Federal Constitutional Court rejected two…
It is very unlikely that the new complaints against the Unified Patent Court Agreement, which were filed last December with the German Federal Constitutional Court (FCC), will delay the Unitary Patent project for two or three more years. Kevin Mooney, partner of Simmons & Simmons and one of the driving forces behind the UPC and…
After BREXIT, ratification and then withdrawal by the UK, a referral to the German Constitutional Court (“Bundesverfassungsgericht“) and finally a ratification by its parliament, the UPC project is once again blocked in Germany, as previously before the Bundesverfassungsgericht. Like the phoenix, the project is constantly reborn. But should we resist, or should we surrender? What think of…
Today (20 January 2021) seems to be a perfect day to celebrate democracy and the rule of law. I will therefore not keep you up for too long, but just wanted to make a short personal comment and a call to all of us discussing the UPCA and the latest events in Germany regarding the…
The German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement has been put on hold at the request of the German Federal Constitutional Court. The FCC has confirmed this in answer to questions by Kluwer IP Law. The FCC has asked Bundespräsident Frank-Walter Steinmeier, to refrain from signing the bill into law, because two constitutional complaints…
