Unitary patent updates from the UK’s UPC Taskforce Update (March 2015)

Further to earlier posts IPcopy has received the latest update from the UK’s UPC Taskforce.

Preparatory Committee

As also reported on the Unified Patent Court website the Prep Committee met on 27 February 2015. The main topic of conversation was the court fee structure and the associated consultation document which is expected to launch this Spring (May? see “Facilities” summary below). Also discussed was the proposal for provisional application of the Unified Patent Court Agreement to manage the transition from the point that the required number of ratifications are received to the point that the Court actually opens its doors for business.

According to the UPC Taskforce email “the Chairman confirmed that the European Patent Litigators Certificate is now in need of finalising and that it should come for adoption at the next meeting of the Preparatory Committee in May“.

IPcopy is unsure whether the “adoption” of the EPLC means that the final version of the rules relating to obtaining an EPLC is going to issue or whether a further proposal for the EPLC is to issue in May. We had previously been under the impression that a revised proposal was being worked on. If any readers have more information on this point then please let us know.

The next meeting of the Prep Committee will be on 5 May 2015.

IT

36 responses were received to the pre qualification questionnaire for the IT system. These are being filtered and the process will move to the ITT stage soon.

Location, location, location

London property options are continuing to be explored and refined. Remember that a ministerial decision is expected by the Spring.

Austria has solved the location issue by announcing that they will host a local division within their Patent Office in Vienna.

Legal

Followers of all things unitary patent will recall (see IPcopy post here) that the UK held a consultation last year on legislative changes to implement the UPC Agreement and comply with the UP regulations. This technical review and call for evidence closed in early September last year and the UPC Taskforce has confirmed that they are working on a summary of the responses which it is hoped will be published soon.

Finance

The Fees Consultation Sub-group is working towards a redraft of the court fees consultation document to be released in May. There are apparently a number of inconclusive “key policy points” but there is recognition that they need to seek views as soon as possible.

Unitary patent Select Committee

<Groundhog Day> Work on the level of renewal fees continues.</Groundhog Day>

Next meeting is due 23/24 March 2015.

Research

A case counting study has been underway apparently and the results will be published soon. The next taskforce update may have more details on this.

Mark Richardson 5 March 2015