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.
Will Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) profit from the new Unitary Patent (UP) system and the Unified Patent Court (UPC)? Although it was certainly the idea, observers have disputed this and particularly warned that litigation under the new system exposes SMEs to enormous risks. There is now formal recognition they have a point: the European…
The creation of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) means that there will finally be a judiciary to control the very strong executive power of the European patent system, the European Patent Office, Jens Schovsbo, Professor at the Centre for Information and Innovation Law of the University of Copenhagen, told Kluwer IP Law in an interview. According…
Prompted by the upcoming Unitary Patent (UP) and Unified Patent Court (UPC), a group of European patent attorneys decided in 2013 to create the European Patent Litigators Association (EPLIT), ‘promoting fair patent litigation in Europe’. Kluwer IP Law spoke to its president, Koen Bijvank. ‘It is unpredictable how the market for patent litigation will change…
The countdown to the new Unitary Patent system has begun. The Unified Patent Court is expected to open its doors at the start of 2017, preceded by a provisional phase in 2016 for the practical set up of the Court and the recruitment of judges and staff. Not only European patent specialists are preparing, companies…
The lack of provisions on Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) is seen as a major flaw in the new Unitary Patent (UP) system. Initiatives have been taken to address this issue and recently the European Commission put it on its action list. Why doesn’t the UP Regulation include a provision for SPCs? Anja Lunze, attorney at…
This month of October will fade away, leaving behind it the “Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on Provisional Application”, done at Brussels on 1 October 2015, the purpose of which – as its name suggests – is to provisionally apply Articles 1-2, 4-5, 6(1), 7, 10-19, 35(1, 3 and 4), 36-41…
On 19 October 2015 the Preparatory Committee of the UPC has adopted the final 18th draft of the Rules of Procedure (RoP) of the Unified Patent Court. This means that the Committee ends its work regarding the Rules of Procedure. There is only one subject that still needs to be included in the RoP and…
The Rules of Procedure for the future Unified Patent Court have been published. According to the UPC Preparatory Committee ‘this is a major milestone in the progress of the Committees work’. ‘The agreed text is Draft no. 18 which shows that the text has undergone a rigorous process of development and testing. The Rules of…
Now that Italy has changed its mind and joined, Spain has become the only EU member state to stay out of the Unitary Patent (UP) system. How good or bad is this for the country and its companies? And will anything change because of the CJEU’s rejection of the Spanish complaints against the UP on…
On 13 October 2015, the Law Commission of the United Kingdom published the final report of the project to reform the law of unjustified (groundless) threats. The report is the culmination of years of work, which started in 2012. After a consultation round, a report was published in 2014 and 18 recommendations for reform were…
