Unified Patent Litigation System - Another Secret Project...

Now, what is this?

It looks as if this might well be something different than the European Patent Judiciary envisaged as counterpart to the EU Community Patent, the chances of which to come into life have further deteriorated since Mr Topolanek's forced demission. In the absence of further facts, the title might be understood as if there has happened some high-level decision to put aside or even abolish the well-known project of a European Patent Judiciary but to launch negotiations aiming at a more radical approach, e.g. merging all national patent courts (also for EP bundle patents and even for national patent?) into a single institution ("Unified" Patent Litigation System). Otherwise, it might also just be merely a technical turn to include EPC Member States not forming part of the EU (e.g. Turkey) into said European Patent Judiciary. I don't know if any of the readers of this Blog have a particular idea about the meaning of this new EU project.

Nevertheless, the EU machinery busily working on improved versions of the Draft Agreement on the European and Community Patents Court and Draft Statute hasn't stopped so far: Document 7928/09 dated March 23, 2009 conveys revised versions of the Draft Agreement on the European and Community Patents Court, the Draft Statute of the Court and the draft list of issues to be included in the Rules of Procedure, submitted by the Presidency for discussion at the meeting of the Intellectual Property (Patents) Working Party on April 02, 2009. This time, Changes to the previous version (5072/09) are indicated throughout the revised text.

Interestingly. there is a new Para. 3 inserted into Article 14a, saying:

(3) A Contracting State which is not a party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area shall bring into force the laws, regulations and administrative provisions necessary to comply with Community law relating to substantive patent law.

This would fit into the theory mentioned above that here a bridge is built for non-EU countries like Turkey.

Moreover, a new Para. 2a inserted into Article 28 makes clear that also patent attorneys who are not entitled to act as professional representatives before the European Patent Office pursuant to Article 134 EPC and/or who do not have appropriate qualifications such as a European Union Patent Litigation Certificate may play a limited role in court proceedings:

(2a) Representatives of the parties may be assisted by patent attorneys who shall be allowed to speak at hearings of the Court in accordance with the Rules or Procedure.

[UPDATE 2009-03-26] A kind reader of this Blog made me aware of this press release.