While the uncertainty over the UK’s participation in the unitary patent project remains, preparations for the unitary patent system continue. In the last week or so there have been a couple of updates related to Italian participation in the scheme.

Ratification by Italy – draft legislation to enable Italy to ratify has been approved by one of Italy’s two chambers of parliament. The legislation, which authorises the President of the Republic to ratify the UPC Agreement, must now be approved by the other chamber and then sent to the President. Italian progress on ratification comes against the backdrop of advance arguments being made for potential relocation of the London division of the UPC. Within Italy, a case has already been made a for hosting the UPC central division.

European Patent Litigation Certificate – a proposal has been made to amend the Draft Rules on the European Patent Litigation Certificate. According to Article 48(2) of the UPC Agreement, European Patent Attorneys may represent parties at the UPC as long as they have appropriate qualifications. One option will be to complete a European Patent Litigation Certificate course but the draft rules also allow EPAs to gain rights of representation via a number of other recognised courses/routes.

The “other qualifications” list in the proposed EPLC rules (rule 12(a)) has now been updated to include the certificate of the final exam of the course “Corso di Proprietà Industriale – Brevetti” which is run at the Politecnico di Milano. The addition of this course came about after the Politecnico recently provided more detail on the course curriculum. The updated rules can be found here and the Preparatory Committee’s news item here.

More information on the EPLC can be found in IPcopy’s earlier post here.

Mark Richardson 27 September 2016