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.
The behavior of EPO president Benoît Battistelli is bad for the reputation of the European Patent Office and may in the longer term force him to resign. Wouter Pors, IP practitioner of Bird & Bird, said this in an interview with Kluwer IP Law, on the occasion of a recent decision of the Dutch appeal…
A first review of the EPO’s proposals for the EP-UE renewal fees in comparison to the current rates by Thorsten Bausch and Greg Sach The EPO, or more specifically the president of the EPO, has recently submitted proposals for the level of renewal fees for the future European Patent with Unitary Effect (EP-UE) to the…
Once the Unified Patent Court has started functioning, local divisions may have to consolidate into regional divisions or shut down altogether, because it turns out they have too few cases to prosper. That is the expectation of Richard Vary, head of litigation of Nokia. At the Unitary Patent Package Conference in Amsterdam last February, Vary…
Pierre Véron is attorney-at-law at Véron & Associés, Paris, Honorary President of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW), Member of the Drafting Committee of the Rules of Procedure and Member of the Expert Panel of the Unified Patent Court. On 10 January2015, Regulation (EU) № 542/2014 of 15 May 2014 entered into force simultaneously with Regulation (EU) № 1215/2012, the…
The possibility to bifurcate proceedings is a concern to many potential users of the future Unified Patent Court (UPC). Proceedings in Germany, in which infringement decisions may be rendered long before a judgment is given on the validity of a patent, serve as an alarming example. Moreover, bifurcation is said to be attractive to patent…
The new long arm jurisdiction provision in the Brussels I Regulation (recast) is one of the most remarkable elements of the Unitary Patent (UP) package, according to French lawyer and IP specialist Pierre Véron. Pierre Véron and Thomas Cottier of Bern University are the authors of the renowned Concise International and European IP Law, a…
We are delighted to announce that on 12 February 2015 Kluwer Law International is hosting a free webinar by Pierre Véron on the Unified Patent Court. Wolters Kluwer present this webinar by Pierre Véron, Attorney-at-law, Véron & Associés, Paris, Honorary President of the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW), Member of the Drafting Committee of the…
The expected number of local divisions of the future Unified Patent Court (UPC) is so high that one may wonder if there will be any advantage in terms of specialization of judges and economies of scale. Bas Pinckaers, head of the patent department of Van Doorne and co-organizer of the Unitary Patent Package Conference on…
By Rechtsanwalt Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna, LL.M., Certified Specialist for Intellectual Property Law, Düsseldorf. This article reflects the personal opinion of the author. On 18 November 2014 Advocate General Yves Bot delivered his Statements of Position (afterwards “Opinions”) in terms of Spain’s nullity actions against the two Regulations on the “unitary patent”, his recommendation to the CJEU…
The Dutch company Philips is among the top-10 Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) applicants and the top-3 European Patent Convention (EPC) applicants. Owning about 64,000 patents and filing approximately 1,500 patent applications each year (with a strong focus on the growth areas of health and well-being), much is at stake for the company with the introduction…
