Strategic Use of the English Patents Court in a Unified Patent Court System - The Current Position

Introduction

It is now clear that the UK will not be participating in the Unified Patent Court (‘UPC’) and Unitary Patent.

The project has also been held up by complaints filed at the German Constitutional Court for a number of years.

Now those objections in Germany have been resolved, and despite the absence of the UK, political momentum has seemingly built behind the UPC and the Unitary Patent again.

The UPC committee is saying that it expects the UPC to start in mid-2022, although most expect a starting date in the winter of 2022/2023.

Where does this leave English patent litigation, given the size of the market covered by the UPC?

As the second largest economy in Europe, and one of the three most designated countries for the grant of European patents, the English jurisdiction is likely to become even more important in European patent litigation than it is now.

This webinar will cover the general and specific features of the English system that can interact with procedures of the UPC, both directly and indirectly.

These have the potential to make the English jurisdiction a gateway to an overall European strategy.

What You Will Learn

This webinar will cover the following:

• Features of English patent litigation that make it an ideal testing jurisdiction
• Features of the UPC that make English decisions potentially influential
• The indirect deployment of English decisions in UPC preliminary injunction decisions and in preventing an injunction gap
• The direct use of English procedures in cross-border declarations of non-infringement
• Other potential uses of English procedures to impact upon or complement the UPC

This webinar was recorded on 9th June 2022