The Unified Patent Court – which when fully operational should settle all disputes and disputes concerning patents at European level – will start on April 1, 2023. Up to now, every date, hypothesized or assured, had been kicked forward like a can on the Street. This time, the date is set – black on white – by theImplementation roadmap of the Technical Committee (UPC) which must “ground” what was signed, almost 10 years ago, in the Intergovernmental Agreement of February 19, 2013. The choice of judges has been completed, whose sentences will be valid throughout the Union.
What changes
The European Union will finally have a European patent “with unitary effect”, i.e. effective simultaneously in all the countries of the Union adhering to the new system and whose validity and / or infringement will be decided with a single procedure, by a single Court , with a sentence that will take effect in all the countries that join it.
Until now, this has not been the case. For “classic” European patents (that is, while providing for a single filing in front of the European Patent Office in Munich, they then need national validations in the countries where the exclusivity is to be obtained, also multiplying the costs). in the case of judicial actions of validity and infringement, it was necessary to act in each country separately, with multiplication of costs and the risk of discordant rulings, by the judges of the different countries. There are four Italian judges toga: Alima Zana, Pierluigi Perrotti, Emanuela Germano and Paolo Catallozzi. Seven, instead, the technical judges: Giorgio Checcacci, Paolo Crippa, Paolo Gerli, Alessandro Sanchini, Elisabetta Papa, Andrea Perronace and Andrea Scilletta.
The choice of companies
Since from 1 April the new judicial authority will open its doors and will begin to receive and investigate patent disputes, the companies holding patents will have, in the coming months, to decide whether to join the new system or enjoy a transitional period of 7 years (so-called opt-out) in which to choose whether to use the national courts or the European unitary patent court. With the difference that in the unitary court with only one case – and only one investment in terms of legal costs – the sentence will have validity cross-border, that is, in the whole area of the participating European countries. With the traditional system. instead, no.
According to Giovanni Casucci (EY partner Ip department and Politecnico di Milano) it should be considered that “if we compare the number of European patents filed per year, on average 180 thousand, for the volume of disputes, about 1,500, the percentage of conflicts is 0.007 percent . In any case, however expensive, it will not exceed the cost of two parallel proceedings in two different jurisdictions and will have the incredible effect of providing coverage to an effective injunction, in one fell swoop, in 24 EU countries “. Not only. “In 2021 – concluded Casucci – according to the German magazine Juve Patent, Italy was the second EU country for the number of European patents involved in court: over 700 in Germany, 200 in Italy, then France and Holland”.