The new Unified Patent Court is on track to start work in 2023

The new Unified Patent Court has published [https://www.unified-patent-court.org/news/administrative-committee-takes-significant-steps-towards-setting-unified-patent-court] a report on the second meeting of its Administrative Committee, which took place on 8 July 2022. It confirms that important steps necessary for the court to start fully operation have been taken and that it is on track for that to happen in early 2023.

The court’s Rules of Procedure and its Table of Fees will enter into force in September. These will be published shortly. The court’s Advisory Committee has prepared a list of the most suitable candidates to be appointed as judges and, as has already been reported, it is expected that successful applicants for judicial positions will be informed before the summer holiday season starts.

The Administrative Committee also confirmed the locations of the local and regional divisions of the Court of First Instance (i.e. the first instance tier of the UPC), namely: Austria (Vienna), Belgium (Brussels), Demark (Copenhagen), Finland (Helsinki), France (Paris), Germany (Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Mannheim, Munich), Italy (Milan), the Netherlands (The Hague), Slovenia (Ljubljana) and Portugal (Lisbon), with the regional Nordic-Baltic division mainly located in Sweden (Stockholm).

Everything is therefore pointing to the sunrise period beginning this autumn, when holders of European patents, who do not wish those patents to be subject to the jurisdiction of the UPC, can start filing formal “opt-out” applications. It would therefore be advisable for European patent proprietors to start reviewing their patent portfolios now, if they have not already done so, in order to decide their strategy.