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 17th Draft Rules of Procedure for the Unified Patent Court have been published on 3 November on the website of the Unified Patent Court. A hearing on the new Draft is planned for 26 November 2014 at the European Law Academy (ERA) in Trier. The meeting will be open to some 200 experts from…
‘When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.’ At the EU Patent Package Congress in Brussels, organized on 17 October by the universities of Antwerp en Louvain attended by Kluwer IP Law, several speakers tackled the issue: is the creation of a specialized court for patent litigation necessarily positive? For companies…
by Rechtsanwalt Dr. Ingve Björn Stjerna, LL.M., Certified Specialist for Intellectual Property Law, Düsseldorf. This article reflects the personal opinion of the author. In Spain’s nullity proceedings against the “unitary patent” Regulations, Advocate General Yves Bot will shortly deliver his Statement of Position, i. e. his suggestions on how the Court should decide these matters….
‘The unitary patent (UP) package is a strange animal.’ Margot Fröhlinger has no problem admitting that. As Principal Director Patent Law and Multilateral Affairs of the EPO she is closely involved in implementing the new patent system, which is expected to become operational in 2016. It is a complicated political compromise, based on both EPC…
‘It’s one big mess.’ At times Emil Pot, co-founder and general counsel of biopharmaceutical company ActoGenix, had difficulty containing his frustration at the Congress on the EU patent package, which took place at 17 October 2014 in Brussels. The issue: the discussion on determining the renewal fees of the future unitary patent (UP), and –…
Since last week the prototype of the case management and efiling software for the Unified Patent Court is online for testing purposes. In Brussels, Paul Van Beukeringen (chairman of the preparatory committee) explained today that the purpose of the testing is to get as much feedback as possible from users on how this case management…
The training of judges for the UPC will commence in the first quarter of 2015. Willem Hoyng, member of the Expert Panel of the UPC Preparatory Committee, informed Kluwer IP Law that a group of 26 ET judges (Eligible with Training) has been selected for the initial training course. However, this does not mean that they will also be…
The machine translations provided by Google and the European Patent Organization have to improve considerably before the Czech Republic will ratify the UPC agreement. Josef Kratochvil, president of the Czech IPO Office, told Kluwer UPC News reporter that the language issue is the most serious problem the Czechs have with the patent package. It is…
Will the upcoming Unified Patent Court be a success? Is opting-out most patents the best option when the new system starts functioning? How will IP litigators and practitioners see their work change? What are the economic consequences for participating countries? Are SME’s benefitting from the Unitary Patent as much as multinationals? Won’t it be too…
Since the announcement of the establishment of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and Unitary Patent (UP) for Europe there has been much speculation concerning the potential positives and negatives of the new system, but little empirical evidence has been provided on the subject. For this reason, in January 2014 the UK Intellectual Property Office (IPO)…
