Thursday, November 05, 2015 Reading Material for Unitary Patent: Articles, Rules and drafts

Not much case law for UPC yet

As the unified patent court and the EPO are preparing for the start of the unitary patent, the amount of rules is increasing. At the moment, I count ten documents with articles and rules that will govern the unitary patent and unified patent court. In this post I'll try to make a comprehensive list of the primary sources on the unitary patent. 

EU level regulations

At the EU level there are two regulations. These regulation dating from 2012 establish among other things the unitary effect, applicable law, and translations agreements. Below I have also included the decision from 2011 that allowed is the unitary patent to proceed without Spain and Italy. (Although Italy has joined later after all.)

Regulation (EU) No 1257/2012 of the European Parliament and of the Council of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection.
The document is available at Eur-lex.
Status: final

Council Regulation (EU) No 1260/2012 of 17 December 2012 implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection with regard to the applicable translation arrangements.
The document is available at Eur-Lex.
Status: final

2011/167/EU: Council Decision of 10 March 2011 authorising enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection.
The document is available at Eur-Lex.
Status: final

Unified Patent Court

The unified patent court is established in the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court. This agreement between EU members has been signed by most of EU member states but is not yet fully ratified. The agreement established the unified patent court (UPC) and its competency. Detailed rules for procedures at the UPC are in a semi-final draft, but cannot be established before the court has been established. A proposal for court fees is available. Recently a protocol was created for the agreement which allows some provision of the agreement to enter into force before the rest of the agreement.

Agreement on a Unified Patent Court
The document is available at the website of the Council of the European Union.
Status: Ratified by 8 member states, awaits the ratification by 5 more states which must include Germany and the United Kingdom.

Preliminary set of provisions for the Rules of Procedure (“Rules”) of the Unified Patent Court
The document is available at the website of the unified patent court.
Status: 18th draft, Adopted by the Preparatory Committee on 19 October 2015. Must be adopted by the Administrative Committee of the UPC, which does not exist yet.

Rules on Court fees and recoverable costs
The document is available at the website of the unified patent court. 
Status: Draft (Consultation Document)

Protocol to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court on provisional application
The document is available at the website of the unified patent court.
Status: Signed by 7 participating member states, does not enter into force until 13 States have informed the depositary that they have received parliamentary approval for the UPC

EPO

The legal basis for the unitary patent is found in the EPC (Articles 142-149a).

European Patent Convention
The document is available (pdf) at the website of the EPO.
Status: final

Draft Rules 1–24 relating to unitary patent protection
The document is available (pdf) at the documentation page at the EPO of the Select Committee
Status: Draft



Adjusted proposals for the level of renewal fees for European patents with unitary effect
The document can be found here. I do not have an official link.
Status: Draft? ('adopted in principle' by the Select Committee)

Photo "Leather Bound Books" by THOR obtained via Flickr  under a  CC-By license

Friday, October 30, 2015 18th draft of UPC Rules of Procedure published

The UPC Preparatory Committee has reached a major milestone with this draft

The new 18th draft of the rules of procedure of the Unified Patent Court has been published on the unified patent court website. The rules of procedure lay down the details of the proceedings before the UPC.

The 18th draft shows extensive revision of the 382 rules. Many of the changes are to improve readability and clarity of the rules, but many rules have received additional clauses and other substantive changes. A tracked changes version, comparing the current draft with the previous draft is available here.

This version of the rules of procedure should be pretty much the definitive version; the unified patent court website foreseeing changes when the court fees have been decided upon. Draft proposals for the court fees are available in draft form.

 The rules will be not be fully definitive until they are adopted by the Administrative Committee of the UPC. As the UPC has not been established, neither has its Administrative Committee. Although the recent Protocol to the UPC Agreement will establish the Administrative Committee early, even before the UPC becomes fully operative (if the protocol itself is adopted that is), Article 41 of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court which governs the adoption of the rules of procedure is not among the parts which are to start early. This implies that one of the first things the UPC will have to do once established is to adopt these rules of procedure.


Photo "Celebrating" by Patrik Nygren obtained via Flickr  under a  CC-By-sa license

Monday, August 25, 2014 EPO (nearly) adopts rules for unitary patent

EPO has announced in a Communiqué that the Select Committee of EPO has adopted 'in principle' the Draft Rules relating to Unitary Patent Protection. The communiqué does not link to a copy of the draft. However, a copy is hosted by Bristows

A full decision on the rules for the unitary patent could not yet be taken as no agreement was found on a number of topics. The communiqué only reveals that these topics concern 'some technical aspects' and a 'one rule relating to financial aspects'.


The  rule relating to financial aspects may refer to Rule 25. Rule 25 details who is going to pay for the unitary patent work of the EPO if the renewal fees don't cover it. Also the renewal fees will be further discussed in October.