The EU Council of Ministers has finally settled on three locations for the Unified Patent Court, which will cut costs and litigation time for pharmaceutical companies.
The European Council of Ministers has finally settled the last and most thorny issue of the proposed EU unitary patent system. On June 29, it gave the go ahead for the establishment of a Unified Patent Court, which means that pharmaceutical companies could save litigation costs amounting to some €289 million ($365 million) per annum.
But, while the UPC’s Central Division of the Court of First Instance and the office of the President will be based in Paris, France, a specialist division for mechanical engineering will be sited in Munich, Germany and the chemistry and pharmaceutical division will go to London, UK, a move clearly welcomed by the Association of the British Pharmaceutical Industry. It is this compromise on territory that has allowed the court to go ahead ("Unified European Patent A Step Closer, But Unified Court Has A Ways Ro Go" — "The Pink Sheet" DAILY, Dec. 17, 2010).
The establishment of the court is significant because it is a vital step in the creation of the unitary patent, which will be applicable across the EU’s Member States. The unitary patent differs from the current European Patent, which is granted by the European Patent Office in Munich and is essentially a bundle of patents from each of the member countries of the European Patent Organisation – this includes members from outside the EU, such as Turkey, Switzerland and Serbia.
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