The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is an international court set up by  EU Member States to deal with the infringement and validity of both Unitary Patents and European patents.

Currently 17 States have ratified the UPC Agreement.  This new system will avoid costly parallel litigations and enhances legal certainty.

The Unified Patent Court has shared the list of Judges who will take up their duties as of the entry into force of the UPC Agreement, expected on June 1, 2023.

85 Judges have been appointed :34 legally qualified judges and 51 part-time technically qualified judges.  The presidium has also been elected.

Marie-Paule Vandeberg is proud to inform you that she has been nominated as technically qualified judge for Mechanical Engineering cases.

Marie-Paule Vandeberg have attended the UPP conference (Unitary Patent Package is a term which gather Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court) in Amsterdam on February 4 and 5 2016.  The advantages and disadvantages of the system were discussed. The amount of the annuity is now known. 17 states have already or will soon ratify the agreement. The unified system will then cover an area of 351 million inhabitants.

 

On October 1, 2015, the Preparatory Committee announced it would complete its mission in June 2016 and that the Community Court should be effective end of 2016 or early 2017. The rules of procedure (18th draft) were adopted on 19 October 2015. They are almost final.

The parties may be represented before the new court system either by lawyers authorized to practice before a court of a Member State (Art 48(1) of the UPC Agreement) or by European Patent Attorneys who have appropriate qualifications such as a European certificate in the field of litigation patents (EPLC - European Patent Litigation Certificate) (Art 48(2) of the UPC Agreement).
The two qualifications being complementary, a representation by both a lawyer and a Patents Attorney will be recommended.
The terms of this EPLC were decided on 3 September 2015.

Unitary Patents will make it possible to get patent protection in up to 25 EU Member States by submitting a single request to the EPO. This one-time validation will reduce the costs of validating and translating the EP patent.

Currently, 17 states are ready for the system to come into force on June 1, 2023.

However, it is already possible since 1st January 2023 to request in advance a request for unitary effect and to request the postponement of the grant of the patent after the entry into force of the new system. This transitional measure is available for European patent applications that have reached the final phase of the grant procedure (notification according to the R71 (3) sent).

A structural reform of the Boards of Appeal is in progress. The aims of the reform are to increase the autonomy, to enhance the perception of independence of the BoA, and to increase their efficiency. No change to the current convention is however envisaged, this would require a diplomatic conference. A user consultation was opened until 30 June 2015. The EPO has published the results of the consultation. The document is available here.

Among various proposals, many participants called for the definition of strict deadlines. In general, the average duration of the current procedure was considered too long. According to the majority, optimal duration would be in the range of one to two years from the filing of an appeal.As regards the institutional set-up, broad support was expressed for a review of the appointment and re-appointment procedure, as well as the creation of a new advisory committee.The Office promised to take into account comments and proposals in the further work.