Another week, another UPC related update from the good folks at the UKIPO plus a short update on the unitary patent fee proposal from the EPO.

Consultation on the Rules on Court Fees – The London event from CIPA/IP Federation to discuss the court fees consultation is being held on Tuesday 23 June 2015 at the offices of Allen & Overy. Those wanting to attend in person can find sign up details in our earlier post. Those wanting to attend from their desk/home/treadmill/train/batcave can follow the proceedings online at this link: http://responsive.policyreview.tv/conference/1036.html

The equivalent event in Edinburgh on the 6th July will be at 4:30pm at the Burness Paull offices: full details here and if you’d like to attend follow the next link and RSVP:
I would like to go to the event in Edinburgh;

Preparatory Committee

The Preparatory Committee is due to meet next on 10 July. In the meantime one of the frequently asked questions on the UPC website has been updated. The updated opt-out FAQ can be accessed here. The FAQ relates to the effect of an Article 83(3) UPCA opt-out on the jurisdiction of the UPC. While all very nice, IPcopy notes that this statement does not carry much in the way of legal authority. So, while it might reassure potential users of the system it does not confer much certainty.

IT
The ITT evaluations are complete and the suppliers have been notified of the result. The process is now in a mandatory period of standstill (first it was “entering purdah”, now it’s a “period of standstill”. What next I wonder?).  The UPC website will also publish the results in due course.

Facilities

The facilities and IT infrastructure groups are going to visit a UK digital magistrates’ court in Manchester soon in order to see a working digital court/learn from its procedures and experience.

Legal

This team is continuing to work on the EPLC (European Patent Litigation Certificate). The hope is that this will be complete before the summer break.

Research

And finally, from the UK’s Taskforce, “Understanding pre-reform behaviour: Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court” is a Knowledge Exchange project. This is being part funded by the Economic and Social Research Council and the UKIPO. Collaborating entities are: Queen Mary University, Newcastle University, University of East Anglia, Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MPI IC) and the Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW).

The objective of the project is to establish a baseline for future evaluations of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court. The project is at an early stage of consulting industry experts, defining methodologies and collecting data. More information about the research can be obtained by contacting enrik.noka@ipo.gsi.gov.uk.

EPO News – Unitary Patent Fee Proposal

The EPO’s website has a short update on the unitary patent fee proposal. Apparently, the revised proposal was presented to the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) on 15 June and received support as “a good compromise” which the member states were encouraged to support.

Mark Richardson 22 June 2015