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Unified Patent Court Rules of Procedure Consultation – IP Federation Comments
The deadline for filing comments in the public consultation on the Rules of Procedure for the Unified Patent Court is tomorrow (1 October). IPcopy, amongst others, has kindly been presented with an advance copy of the IP Federation’s comments. The full 13 page response can be found here but a brief summary of the comments can be found below.
The UPC Rules of Procedure: Apple, Google and Samsung join forces!
IPcopy was very interested to read AmeriKat’s excellent post on IPKat about the joint letter that Apple, Google and Samung (amongst others) have sent to the Member States of the European Union, Members of the European Parliament, the European Commission and the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court. The letter which was sent to the New York Times (see NY Times article here) notes that “an effective and balanced unitary patent system has the potential to decrease the costs of obtaining patent protection, increase European competitiveness, and support the long-term growth of innovative industries in Europe and abroad”.
The letter then goes on however to raise two major concerns with the Rules of Procedure (15th Draft here), namely bifurcation and injunctions.
I Am the Law – I Am a UPC Judge
As the UPC judge arrived in court the problem of bifurcation suddenly didn’t seem worth worrying about (Image from Flickr under cc licence/Mooshuu)
The Preparatory Committee for the Unified Patent Court has recently launched expression of interests of candidate judges at the UPC. As noted in the cover text the Committee adopted its detailed roadmap back in June this year and one priority of the roadmap was to help the nomination process of the first group of judges and to ensure the organisation of training of candidate judges. The call for expression of interest can be found here and the rules of the pre-selection procedure here. The closing date for the call of interest is 15 November 2013 so if you are interested you haven’t got that much time to send your applications to Mr Paul van Beukering (Chairman of the Preparatory Committee).
UPC Rules of Procedure Consultation Event for Stakeholders: A round-up, and a few views
Last week, ipcopymark and ipcopyemily ventured out of the open plan, into the late summer sunshine, and headed towards Bristows’ offices for the ‘UPC Rules of Procedure Consultation Event for Stakeholders’, jointly hosted by Bristows LLP, the IPO, CIPA and the IP Federation. What unfolded was a thoroughly interesting two hours of discussion, explanation, comment and debate. The level of knowledge of the UPC among the audience was remarkably high, and it was clear that everyone in the auditorium was highly invested in the eventual content of the Rules of Procedure.
The event was chaired by Bobby Mukherjee from the IP Federation; Neil Feinson from the IPO, who is a member of the Preparatory Committee, also spoke, and the discussion panel consisted of Lord Justice Floyd, Kevin Mooney of Simmons and Simmons (both members of the Drafting Committee that has been preparing the draft of the Rules of Procedure), Alan Johnson of Bristows and Richard Vary of Nokia. A recording of the event can be found here.
Seven topics of particular interest were discussed, and below is a brief summary of the issues and commentary on each. But before we turn to these seven topics. IPCopy would like to offer some brief musings of its own on why all of this matters… (more…)
Unitary patent package – Timeline for implementation
The dolly zoom is a camera effect, famously used by Alfred Hitchcock in Vertigo, in which the background in a shot suddenly appears to change size in relation to the foreground subject matter. Those of you following the implementation of the unitary patent system may have noted that despite the main legislative regulations and agreements being in place the actual “go live” date for the system appears to be performing the legal equivalent of a dolly zoom by disappearing into the distance!
Since the original implementation date was April 2014 but is now being reported as late 2015/2016, we thought we’d take a quick look at the timeline as it appears now.
Unified Patent Court News: European Commission Adopts Proposal for Amendment to Brussels I Regulation
Breaking news from IPCopy (with a shout-out to the eagle-eyed Giles Parsons of Browne Jacobson for the heads-up): The European Commission has adopted the Proposal for a Regulation amending Regulation No 1215/2012 (the ‘Brussels I’ regulation). This amendment has been eagerly anticipated by Unitary Patent spotters, and is necessary to bring the Agreement on the Unified Patent Court into effect.
Unitary patent – The Italian Job
As previously noted on IPcopy here, Italy signed the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court back in February but were not “fully paid” up members of the unitary patent package because they hadn’t joined the enhanced cooperation regime on the unitary patent.
We have previously heard that Italy was considering joining the enhanced cooperation regime but according to a news update here some more positive noises have been heard regarding Italy becoming part of the club. (more…)
Unitary Patent Package – hard-coded bifurcation revisited
In an earlier post we pointed out how the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court appeared, by virtue of Article 47(5), to hard-code or hard-wire bifurcation into the system in instances where a licensee was bringing an infringement action. According to the UPC Article (see below) the defendant would need to start separate proceedings against the patent proprietor in order to challenge the validity of the patent.
In the 15th draft of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court there were some amendments to Rule 25 (Counterclaim for revocation) which, on the face of it, appear to address this issue. In this post we take a closer look at the changes. (more…)
Croatia join European Union
Croatia joined the European Union today, 1 July 2013, to become the 28th member state of the union.
Croatia’s accession to the EU has an impact on Community Trade Marks (CTMs), Registered Community Designs and potentially the unitary patent system. (more…)
The Official Fifteenth Draft Rules of Procedure of The Unified Patent Court – What’s new!
The official (fifteenth) draft of the rules of procedure of the unified patent court has officially been unleashed on the world (take a look here), and the public consultation has now begun. You have until 1 October 2013 to submit your comments to the preparatory committee (details here), so get writing.
IPCopy has produced a tracked-changes version of the draft rules, comparing the newly-released official fifteenth draft, and the previous fourteenth draft, which you can find here. We’ve been combing through the new draft Rules to see what’s of interest.
IPcopy 