Report of the Litigation Committee

K. Finnilä (FI), Chair
T Walshe (IE), Secretary

The first meeting of the newly elected Litigation Committee was held virtually on 29th November 2023. The following officers were elected for the forthcoming term.

Chair: Kim Finnilä (FI)
Vice Chair: Tilman Pfrang (DE)
Secretary: Triona Walshe (IE)

During the virtual meeting, it was agreed that election of the sub-committees would be deferred until the next in-person meeting (now planned for April 2024). It was further agreed that the structure of the sub-committees would be reviewed together with the list of open topics at the next in-person meeting. In the interim, the newly elected executive committee have met to commence preparations for the April in-person meeting.

Updates on the UPC

On the 23rd January 2024, the Irish Government approved the proposal to hold the necessary constitutional referendum in June 2024 on Ireland’s participation in the Unified Patent Court. Should the referendum pass, Ireland will become the 18th member state in the UPC system. The Irish Government have also indicated that they will host a local division of the UPC.

UPC Administrative Committee (AC) and UPC IT Team & Registrar

The meetings with the UPC IT Team & Registrar and as observers before the UPC Administrative Committee are ongoing.

The 9th meeting with the UPC IT Team & Registrar was held on 11th December 2023 with all observer groups, BusinessEurope, EPLAW, EPLIT and epi, participating in the meeting. Discussions centred around issues regarding access and searchability of UPC documentation together with procedural issues arising from the CMS, including the important topic of third party intervention.

The 9th meeting of the UPC AC was held on 24 November 2023. The EPLC accreditation requests by CEIPI and Fernuniversität in Hagen were approved. The search for a Director and Expert Committee (responsible of the rules of mediation and arbitration and for drawing up a list of mediators and arbitrators) for the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) was also launched.

The UPC has published details of the case load of the UPC for since the start of operations on 1st June 2023 which was most recently updated on 31st January 2024. A brief summary of the data in the report follows:

As of 31st January, the Court of First Instance (CoFI) has received a total of 217 cases, of which there are 83 infringement actions, 26 of the infringement actions have led to 86 counterclaims for revocation.

The CoFI has also received 22 applications for provisional measures, preserving evidence and orders for inspection. The Paris and Munich central divisions have received 21 and 4 revocation actions respectively.

As of 31st January 2024, the Court of Appeal (CoA) has received 11 appeals under RoP 220.1 (litera a/b or c) and 13 appeals under RoP 220.2, 1 request for discretionary review, 2 applications for suspensive effect and 3 applications for an order for expedition of an appeal.

The next 10th meeting with the UPC IT Team & Registrar is due to take place on Monday 26th February 2024. The date for the next meeting of the UPC AC has yet to be announced.


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