One aim of the new Unified Patent Court is to deliver expeditious and high quality decisions. In order to achieve this goal one important step has been to recruit and train patent judges, which will be both legally qualified and technically qualified judges. On October 19th the Unified Patent Court confirmed the appointment of a total of 85 judges (34 legally qualified judges and 51 technically qualified judges) as well as the composition of its Presidium.
These judges must have experience from patent litigation, be a national of a Contracting member state as well as good command of at least one official language of the European Patent Office (EPO).
Any panel of the UPC shall have a multinational composition, and the legally qualified judges must fulfil the requirements as required in a Contracting Member State.
The technically qualified judges must have expertise in a specific field of technology as well as proven knowledge of civil law and procedure relevant to patent litigation.
There are also rules governing how many judges that will be assigned to a local or regional division. If a local or regional division is expected to receive fewer than 50 cases annually there will be one local judge and two judges from jurisdictions with a history of patent litigation. In effect this means that the local divisions in Germany, France , Italy and the Netherlands will have two local judges, and that any local chambers outside of those countries will consist of one local judge and two foreign judges appointed from a list.
Regional chambers will consist of two local judges from the countries forming the regional division and one judge appointed from outside of the region. A party may request an additional, appropriately technically qualified judge be allocated by the President of the Court of First Instance to any local or regional division panel.
From a regional and Swedish perspective the following appointments are notable:
Ms Ingeborg Simonsson (SE) – Court of Appeal
Mr Stefan Johansson (SE) – Nordic-Baltic Regional Division (EE, LT, LV, SE)
Mr Anders Max Hansson (SE) – technically qualified judges
Mr Patrik Rydman (SE) – technically qualified judges
Read the article from the UPC here.
The Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court
Joint expertise and resources to help you navigate in the new system and choose the right strategy.
As a client you will benefit from our long-standing collaboration with Ström & Gulliksson, one of the leading patent firms in Sweden within intellectual property. We jointly, and successfully, represent clients in national and international patent proceedings. With our top tier patent litigators and top tier patent attorneys you will reap considerable strategic and competitive benefits.
Read our previous articles here:
Preliminary date set for the start of the UPC
The road ahead for reaching the Unitary Patent
The Unitary Patent system: Opting out – a decision to start considering
UP and UPC are about to happen (again)
To find out more about the UP and the UPC, please contact:
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Managing Partner
+46 70 566 76 99
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Equity Partner
+46 70 597 51 00
