The 16th draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court has been published and can be found here (16th draft of Rules of Procedure). Helpfully the latest draft has been prepared as a marked-up document which means the amendments are easy to spot.

There’s a fair amount of red lined comments in this draft which IPcopy will take some time to digest. However, a few points of interest are noted below.

• The 16th draft is accompanied by a “comprehensive digest” which explains the actions taken by the Expert Group chaired by Kevin Mooney.
• Work on the Rules will now be “taken up under the chairmanship of Johannes Karcher in the Legal Group of the Preparatory Committee which will now examine the draft set of rules at the level of participating EU-Member States.”
• The publication of the 16th draft is not intended to kick off a further round of written comments.
• Rule 5 which relates to opting out from the Unified Patent Court now contains a large chunk of text dealing with supplementary protection certificates.
• Rule 286 which relates to the certificate that a representative is authorised to practice before the Court has been revised. In particular a lawyer within the meaning of Article 48(1) of the UPC Agreement is defined as a “person who is authorised to pursue professional activities under a title referred to in Article 1 of Directive 98/5/EC.” 
• A copy of the above Directive can be found here.
• A note to Rule 286(1) has been added which states: “The reference to Swedish jurists in the definition of lawyer in the 15th Draft has resulted in considerable adverse comment and confusion. The definition has been altered to exclude such reference but the status of such persons still needs to be dealt with.”

Mark Richardson 6 March 2014