UPC Structure – local, regional and central divisions and Court of Appeal

01 June 2023 | Insight

Legal Briefings

The UPC will have a Court of First Instance (divided into local, regional and central divisions) and a Court of Appeal (Luxembourg). Cases will commence in any one of these divisions according to the subject matter and the prescribed division set out in the UPC Agreement and the UPC Rules.

The main seat of the central division will be Paris with further seats in Munich and Milan (previously this was to have been a London seat until the UK's withdrawal from the UPC system).

The work of the central division will be divided according to the subject matter of the patent in dispute based on IPC classifications:

The "London" seat of the central division was assigned cases on patents involving human necessities (A) and pharmaceuticals/chemistry including genetic engineering and metallurgy (International Patent Classification of WIPO sections (A) and (C)). However, once London left the UPCA, these needed to be reassigned and a third seat reallocated. This third seat has now been allocated to Milan, but the patent IPC classes that it will cover has not yet been finalised.

In the meantime, the Munich seat of the central division, which has already been allocated cases involving patents in IPC class F (concerning mechanical engineering, lighting, heating, weapons and blasting), will also now deal with patents in IPC class C – some pharmaceuticals including patents relating to peptides and nucleic acids and also genetic engineering.
The Paris seat of the central division will now hear all cases involving patents in IPC section A as well as all other patent classifications.

LATEST ON LOCAL AND REGIONAL DIVISIONS

The UPC website has a page confirming the location of the various local and regional divisions of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) (see here). Whilst all other participating states have one local court (or participate in the Nordic-Baltic regional division), Germany has four local division courts - Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Mannheim and Munich.

Under the UPC Agreement, Court of First Instance courts like these in states where there are on average more than 50 patent cases a year under current national patent litigation proceedings have a judicial panel of three legally qualified judges, two of whom are local nationals of that state (or of those states in the case of the regional division), plus one technically qualified judge.

The UPC Administrative Committee had previously listed the following locations for local divisions of the Court of First Instance of the UPC and the numbers of legally qualified judges to be on the panel at each (see below). However this document has now been removed and the only information available is on the new UPC website at "Court – Locations" (here).

Vienna, Austria – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
Brussels, Belgium – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
Copenhagen, Denmark – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
Helsinki, Finland – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
Paris, France – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Düsseldorf, Germany – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Hamburg, Germany – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Mannheim, Germany – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Munich, Germany – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Milan, Italy – 2 Legally Qualified Judges
Lisbon, Portugal – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
Ljubljana, Slovenia – 1 Legally Qualified Judge
The Hague, The Netherlands – 2 Legally Qualified Judges

In addition, one regional division of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court will be established: the Nordic-Baltic regional division, located in Stockholm, with two legally qualified judges. This regional division covers cases from Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia are yet to do fully ratify the UPCA, but are expected to participate in the longer term. These states cannot have their court locations confirmed until they do fully ratify of course. The seats of the central division are Paris and Munich, with the location of the third seat which was to have been London now announced as Milan.

In terms of the languages of each court, the UPC website carries some general information here, but it is thought that

Finland will use Finnish as a designated language alongside English in its local division court.
Denmark will use Danish and English as languages of the proceedings in its local division.
The Belgian local division will operate in Dutch, English, French and German.
Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania will use English in the Nordic-Baltic regional division

A training facility for judges has also been established in Budapest.

For more on the UPC and unitary patent see our series of feature articles published in PLC Magazine's March and April editions 2022 and shared in pdf form on our IP blog here.