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

17 February 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 one other participating member state (previously this was London until its recent 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 seat previously assigned to London (but now possibly to be located in Milan) will deal with patents falling into International Patent Classification of WIPO sections (A) Human necessities (including pharmaceuticals but also foodstuffs, tobacco, clothes, furniture, footwear, some agriculture applications and sports and amusements and more) and (C) Chemistry (which includes genetic engineering) and Metallurgy.
Munich will hear cases involving patents in IPC class F, concerning mechanical engineering.
All other patent classifications will fall to be heard before the Paris central division, and Paris will take the content that would have gone to the London seat in the interim, until the third seat is confirmed.

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 will have one local court (or participate in the Nordic-Baltic regional division), Germany will have four local division courts - Dusseldorf, Hamburg, Mannheim and Munich.

Under the UPC Agreement, Court of First Instance courts like these where there are on average more than 50 patent cases a year under current national patent litigation proceedings in those states, are to have a judicial panel of three legally qualified judges, two of whom would be 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. 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, mainly located in Stockholm, with two legally qualified judges. This regional division is expected to cover cases from Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania.

The Courts of First Instance announced cover all the states that are have currently fully ratified the UPC Agreement. Ireland, Greece, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania and Slovakia which are yet to do so, but are expected to participate in the longer term, cannot have their court locations confirmed until they do fully ratify of course. The seats of the central division are currently fixed as Paris and Munich, with the location of the third seat which was to have been London still undecided, although Milan looks to be a front runner.

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

Finland is likely to use Finnish as a designated language alongside English in its local division court.
Denmark plans to 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.