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Unitary Patent Regulation and Unified Patent Court Agreement

02 December 2011

The IP Federation is concerned that the draft Regulation and draft Agreement will precipitate a patent system in Europe which is worse than we have today. Thus we have made a plea for the UK not to initial, agree to or sign anything in which our concerns are not dealt with or which precludes further progress on structural issues.  In addition, sufficient flexibility should be left to deal with other more technical issues, such as privilege, that are problematic in the latest draft we have seen.

Our main concerns are:

  • Articles 6–8 (defining the rights conferred by a Unitary Patent) should be removed from the draft Regulation.
  • The draft Agreement should allow patent owners to initiate infringement pro­ceedings and proceedings for protective and provisional measures before the Central Division.
  • The draft Agreement should allow patent applicants to opt-out of the juris­diction of the Unified Court those patents applied for via the EPO (other than unitary patents) during the transitional period.
  • The Central Division should not be located such as to encourage delays in the consideration of validity.
  • A satisfactory and advanced draft of the Rules of Procedure should be avail­able before signature of the Agreement.

For full details, click HERE.

To see all our policy papers, click HERE.



Previous Articles

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  • Location of the Unified Patent Court 

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  • Implementing the Hargreaves review – call for evidence in relation to the design sector 

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    (November 11, 2011) read more »»
     
  • IPReg Consultation on Litigation Rights for Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys 

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  • Draft agreement on a Unified Patent Court and draft Statute 

    The IP Federation has issued a statement in support of the "principles... 
    (September 22, 2011) read more »»
     
  • Harmonisation of Substantive Patent Law 

    The IP Federation has made a plea for renewed efforts to find common ground... 
    (September 06, 2011) read more »»
     
  • EU–India Free Trade Agreement 

    The IP Federation has written to the IPO advocating the provision of Regulatory... 
    (August 12, 2011) read more »»
     
  • IPO consultation on experimental use and Bolar exemption 

    The IP Federation has responded to the IPO consultation with deadline 31 July... 
    (July 29, 2011) read more »»
     
  • IP Federation Annual Lunch 

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    (July 13, 2011) read more »»
     
  • Third party observations at the EPO 

    The IP Federation has written to the EPO asking it to reconsider its decision... 
    (June 20, 2011) read more »»