HSF IP partners interviewed on UPC preparations by IAM

IAM have interviewed our IP partners Laura Orlando and Sebastian Moore in an article The EU's Unified Patent Court is set to open in 2022 - this is what you need to know, published on 15 December, on the progress towards the new European patent system. The article discusses the new landscape for patent enforcement - including the 2022 start date, opt-out considerations and deadlines, and the practical arrangements needed to bring the new court to life.

Asked about the location of the Life Sciences section of the central division of the UPC which had previously been granted to London,  Laura Orlando (HSF EMEA co-lead Life Sciences) commented that both Italy and the Netherlands are hoping to be the new host for this branch of the court: “Stakeholders in Italy are lobbying the government and asking it to make its voice heard at the European level to revisit the provisional decision, and to push for the reassignment of the seat to Italy”. Whilst this remains undecided the UPC preparatory committee has provisionally suggested splitting central division life sciences cases between the other two central divisions (Munich and Paris) in the interim.

Another crucial area which is likely to determine how many businesses are prepared to put their patents into the new court process (rather than keeping them opted out) is the judges appointed to the UPC, both legal and technical. Sebastian Moore commented: “At the end of the day the court will only be as good as its judges. In terms of the confidence to use the court, one of the big unknowns is the quality of the judges”. This is a particular concern because there will be no historical jurisprudence to assist in the anticipation of judicial decisions, making the outcome of initial UPC cases more uncertain than a national patent action might be.

There are thought to have been many applications for judicial appointments at the UPC by current national judges from the UPC participating members states. As the IAM article reports, Sebastian believes that the likelihood of there being a large number of top-quality legal judges hearing UPC cases should help create confidence in the system. “What we don’t know is what the technical judges will be like," he observes. "They are being hired from a much broader pool than the legal judges. That will be interesting to watch out for.”'

To read more on the UPC (including on the appointment of judges and the composition of the judicial panels in the different divisions) see our UPC Hub.