Last Posts Archives - UPC Blog by amar goussu staub

22 July 202228 July 2022

“Long time no see, long time no say”: UPC is back on (fast) track!

Glanmire Road Station in the 1890s in Cork, Ireland. Photo by National Library of Ireland.

Photo via <a href=”https://www.goodfreephotos.com/”>Good Free Photos</a>

As the title of this post paraphrases lyrics of a song from the French band Phoenix, the legendary bird is what comes to mind when speaking about the UPC.

Indeed, since our last article reporting German constitutional court referral which (almost) killed the UPC, many things happened in order to agree with the well-known proverb “where there’s a will there’s way”.

Here is a catch-up post with the latest news on the UPC and its upcoming implementation (official start should occur during the first half of 2023):

8/07/2022 | “Early 2023” horizon: As a results of many “significant steps” taken during its second meeting, the UPC Administrative Committee indicated that “the timing of the start of operations of the Court can reasonably be expected to occur in early 2023”. The Committee took the opportunity of this meeting to confirm the setting-up of local and regional divisions of the Court of First Instance and to adopt the Court’s Rules of Procedure and its Table of Fees which will both enter into force on September 1^st, 2022.

More information on this meeting can be found in a statement on the UPC website and all non-confidential adopted documents are made available.

Inter alia, the Committee lifted the restrictions once contemplated for the access to the decisions and orders issued by the Court, as wished by many professional bodies, in particular for transparency and public trust reasons. Such restriction (no automatic publication) is maintained for written pleadings and evidences, that could be disclosed “upon reasoned request” (see Amendment 24 Rule 262 – “Public access to the register”).

On July 8^th, the Committee were also supposed to designate the UPC’s full and part-time judges. We will keep you posted as soon as more information will become available. As to where these judges will actually be located in Paris, it has recently been indicated that there will be two entities : one located quai de la Mégisserie and the other located on the Ile de la Cité (within the Court of Appeal and the international chamber of the Commercial Court).

28/06/2022 | Referendum in Ireland regarding the UPC in 2023/2024. As reported by the national Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, “The Government today reaffirmed its commitment to participate in the European Unitary Patent system and Unified Patent Court (UPC) and to hold a referendum to enable Ireland to do so”. The announcement also indicates that “Ireland has committed to the establishment of a local division of the Court to operate the terms of the agreement subject to the successful passage of a Constitutional Referendum. The Tánaiste will return to Government to outline the resources required to establish the same.”

19/01/2022 | Entry into force of the Provisional Application Protocol (PAP): General Secretariat of the Council of the European Union, in its role as Depository, declared that the Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA) of the UPC Agreement entered into force on January the 19^th, 2022. This announcement followed the ratification of the PPA by Austria (and the subsequent deposition) which thus triggered the start of the PAP allowing the conduct of the last part of the preparatory work in establishing the Court.

As a recall, in order to establish the UPC, 13 countries needed to ratify the UPC Agreement, including (post Brexit) France, Italy and Germany. Regarding the latter, Germany ratified the PPA but decided to delay final ratification of the UPC Agreement until a time at which the Court could be operational. Such final ratification by Germany will automatically trigger the entry into existence of the UPC on the first day of the fourth month thereafter.

6 September 20196 September 2019

Brexit and the German constitutional challenge

Brexit is getting closer everyday and its consequences for the UPC have become tangible: it is now unlikely that the UK will still be a member of the UPC after 31st October 2019. It also is unlikely that the UK will become a member state of the UPC before Brexit; Germany’s ratification before the end of next month being highly improbable.

So what has been happening in the UK with regard to the UPC?

In August, Jo Johnson was reappointed as IP Minister. He had already held the position from July 2016 to January 2018. It is under his tenure that the UK ratified the UPC Agreement and declared it intended to participate to the UPC after Brexit.

Some had interpreted this re-appointment as a strong signal of the government support for the UK’s involment in the UPC. However Jo Johnson resigned as MP and minister on 05th September, citing “unresolvable tension between family loyalty and the national interest’.

Thus, now that the UK Government seems to be aiming for a no-deal Brexit the possibility of the UK remaining a member of the UPC is very slim. Indeed, had the UK agreed to the EU withdrawal agreement, the UK and the EU would have had until 31 december 2020 to negotiate the UK’s continued participation to the UPC.

Hence, although the UKIPO declared the following to Managing IP:

it is difficult to see how the UK government could, after Brexit, justify to be subjected to the decisions of the Court of Justice of the European Union.

Moreover, commentators agree on the fact that there is still a strong incentive for the UPC to exist even without the UK’s participation. The UPC member states will thus probably push for its entry into force despite the fact that the UK is not participating.

Managing IP has actually launched this week a survey for in-houses “to find out whether a European harmonised patent system would still be attractive to patent-focused businesses without the UK as a participant” . It asks 2 questions:

“1. Would the UPC and unitary patent system still be attractive to you and your business without the UK as a participant? 2. Why do you think the UPC and unitary patent project is still attractive OR unattractive without the UK? “

And what about Germany?

Despite passing the legislation enabling the ratification of the UPC Agreement, Germany has yet to ratify it. The ratification is stalled by the constitutional challenge of the very legislation allowing the ratification of the UPC Agreement . The German constitutional court has however schedulled the challenge for a hearing this year.

In August, the German Federal Government has had also to answer questions from the German Free Democratic Party about the UPC. The questions concerned the impact of Brexit and Germany’s annual budget for the UPC. The German Federal Government was asked about the money it has spent to contribute to support the development of the UPC. With regard to the impact of Brexit, the German Federal Government responded the following:

“The issue of the withdrawal of the United Kingdom from the European Union (so-called Brexit) and its implications for European patent reform play an important role in the further implementation process of the Unified Patent Court. The real and legal implications of withdrawing from the Treaty must be examined and agreed at European level. This opinion is currently not finalized, not least because significant factors of the expected exit are not yet known.” (p.2 response to questions 1 & 2, )

Regarding future budgets, the Federal Government confirmed its ongoing commitment to the creation of a unified patent system in Europe. It declared:

“The Federal Government has always insisted on the creation of a unified patent system in Europe and thus also on the Unified Patent Court. This commitment will continue. The Federal Government therefore takes the necessary budgetary measures to fulfill the financial obligations arising from ratification” (p.4, response to questions 7 & 8)

The UPC into action before Brexit no longer possible?

The coming into existence of the UPC before Brexit does not seem probable. It is in fact, on the one hand, unlikely the German constitutional court decide upon the constitutionality of the ratification legislation before Brexit and, on the other hand, one can doubt that Germany would sign the UPC Agreement without knowing the overall impact of Brexit on the UPC.

The coming into action of the UPC will thus depend on the Member states’ ability to commit, notably financially, to the project once the UK will have left the EU. Indeed, the UPC Agreement does not require the UK to be a participating member state for it to come into force; but only provides that “this Agreement should enter into force on 1 January 2014 or on the first day of the fourth month after the 13th deposit, provided that the Contracting Member States that will have deposited their instruments of ratification or accession include the three States in which the highest number of European patents was in force in the year preceding the year in which the signature of the Agreement takes place, or on the first day of the fourth month after the date of entry into force of the amendments to Regulation (EU) No 1215/20121 concerning its relationship with this Agreement, whichever is the latest”.

18 April 201915 May 2020

How are trade secrets protected under the UPC Agreement?

How are trade secrets protected at national level within the EU?

The protection of trade secrets is an essential guarantee for the protection of intellectual property. However, until recently, EU Member States offered very different levels of protection for confidential information. Directive EU 2016/943 adopted in June 2016 thus aimed at harmonizing national legislations.

Indeed, as highlighted by the directive, “there is a higher risk for businesses in Member States with comparatively lower levels of protection, due to the fact that trade secrets may be stolen or otherwise unlawfully acquired more easily. This leads to inefficient allocation of capital to growth-enhancing innovation within the internal market because of the higher expenditure on protective measures to compensate for the insufficient legal protection in some Member States. It also favours the activity of unfair competitors who, subsequent to the unlawful acquisition of trade secrets, could spread goods resulting from such acquisition across the internal market. Differences in legislative regimes also facilitate the importation of goods from third countries into the Union through entry points with weaker protection, when the design, production or marketing of those goods rely on stolen or otherwise unlawfully acquired trade secrets. On the whole, such differences hinder the proper functioning of the internal market.”
All industries should thus benefit from the homogenization of trade secrets at EU level .

Although, while the directive transposition deadline was set for 6th June 2018, EU Member States have actually implemented it at different paces. Companies have however already seized the opportunity to rely on it. In France for example, the Paris Court of Appeal held on 9th October 2018 the first French decision relying on the transposition of the directive (see the decision below). In this case LGE had asked the Court to order Conversant Wireless to present confidential evidence, who opposed it. The Paris Court of Appeal granted LGE‘s request, considering that the confidentiality conditions provided by article L. 153-1 of the French Code of commerce, which transposes EU directive 2016/943, would adequately protect the trade secrets contained in the confidential evidence at stake.

The protection of trade secrets and confidential information is a problem that will similarly arise before the UPC.

How will trade secrets be protected by the UPC?

The UPC Agreement provides for different measures to protect confidential information, at articles 45, 52, 58, 59 and 60.

Article 45 allows the UPC to arrange for private proceedings, and article 52 provides that the UPC may, with the agreement of the parties, dispense with the oral hearing. Article 58 grants the Court the power to order the prohibition or restriction of the collection and use of evidence, while articles 59 and 60 subject the Court’s power to present and preserve evidence as well as inspect premises, subject to the protection of confidential information.

However, the UPC Agreement also contains provisions that may be more challenging for the protection of trade secrets.

Article 10 for example states that the register shall be public (though article 45 provides for private proceedings) . Article 80 adds that the Court may, at the request of the applicant, order the display or publication of the decision.

But what about Non-Disclosure Agreements?

The UPC Agreement does not say anything about Non-Disclosure Agreements. The UPC Rules of Procedure on the other hand specify when the parties can request such agreements.

Hence, when the UPC must give an order “to produce evidence” (Rule n°190), “on the application for preserving evidence” (Rule n°196), or “for inspection” (Rule n°199), measures to preserve the confidentiality of the information at stake can be granted by the Court. Such measures restrict the disclosure of the information “to certain named persons only and be subject to appropriate terms of non-disclosure“.

Rule n°190 for example states: “Where a party has presented reasonably available and plausible evidence in support of its claims and has, in substantiating those claims, specified evidence which lies in the control of the other party or a third party, the Court may on a reasoned request by the party specifying such evidence, order that other party or third party to produce such evidence. For the protection of confidential information the Court may order that the evidence be disclosed to certain named persons only and be subject to appropriate terms of non-disclosure. “ (Emphasis added)

Rule n°105, 115, 197 and 262 also provide for the Court to adapt respectively the interview conference, oral hearing, order to preserve evience and public access to the register. These guarantee that the information is kept “to the extent necessary, confidential in the interests of one or both parties or third parties or in the general interests of justice or public order“.

Rule n°105 for example provides:

” 1. The interim conference should, where practicable, be held by telephone conference or by video conference. 2. On request by a party, subject to paragraph 1 and the approval of the judge-rapporteur, the interim conference may be held in Court. If the interim conference is held in Court, it shall be open to the public unless the Court decides to make it, to the extent necessary, confidential in the interests of one or both parties or third parties or in the general interests of justice or public order. “

The UPC Agreement and the UPC Rules of Procedure thus, in a similar way than EU member states, transpose the EU directive 2016/943. The UPC Agreement is thus drafted to guarantee that trade secrets are not stolen or otherwise unlawfully acquired. Nonetheless, it will now be for the UPC to apply its discretion and decide consistently when to use the measures provided for in the UPC Agreement and in the UPC Rules of Procedure.

26 March 201827 March 2018

What should you know about the Unitary Patent?

The Unitary Patent should soon add a new level of protection for patent owners in Europe. This post therefore presents the essential characteristics of the Unitary Patent, and how it differs from the current patenting system.

What is the current patenting system in Europe?

In Europe, it is currently possible to apply for a patent through the national, international, and European routes.

Under the national route, applicants can apply for a patent in one country at a time. The applicant must file the application at the IP offices in the countries where she seeks protection. The national route leads to national rights and confers protection at national level.

Under the international route, the Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) provides a unified procedure for 152 different contracting states. A PCT application allows patent holders to simultaneously seek patent protection in a large number of countries by filing a single “international” patent application. It is not necessary to file several separate national or regional patent applications. The granting of patents remains however under the control of the national or regional patent offices.

Under the European route, applicants are granted European patents for some or all of the contracting states to the European Patent Convention (EPC) and to the current extension states (Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro). A European patent is a bundle of national patents. It has the effect of and is subjected to the same conditions as a national patent granted by that state. This is true for each of the contracting states for which it is granted.

What is a Unitary Patent?

A European patent with unitary effect or Unitary Patent is a new type of European patent, to which unitary effect is given. The Unitary Patent is not a new intellectual property title but a new legal characteristic given to an already existing title: the European patent.

The Unitary Patent will be granted by the EPO under the rules and procedures of the EPC. It will co-exist with the current patent system. Patent proprietors will be able to choose between European patents, national patents and Unitary Patents.

It will not be possible to obtain a European patent and a Unitary patent for the same invention.

Which legal instruments created the Unitary Patent?

In March 2011, the Council of the European Union issued a decision authorising enhanced cooperation for the creation of a unitary patent protection.

Enhanced co-operation is a mechanism set out in the Lisbon Treaty. It allows 9 or more EU member states to establish advanced integration or cooperation in any area within the EU structures, without the other member states being involved.

The Unitary Patent package consists of:

Regulation (EU) N°1257/2012 dated 17th December 2012 implementing the enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of the unitary patent protection.

Regulation (EU) N°1260/2012 dated 17th December 2012 implementing the enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection with regard to the applicable translation arrangements.

The Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC Agreement), an agreement between EU countries to set up a single and specialized patent jurisdiction. This Agreement must still be ratified by most Member States. The UPC Agreement will enter into force on the first day of the 4th month after the deposit of the 13th instrument of ratification, including the ratification of Germany, France and the United Kingdom. These 3 countries were indeed the 3 Contracting Member States in which the highest number of European patents had effect in 2012. Currently 15 Member States including France have ratified the UPC Agreement.

What are the goals of the Unitary Patent?

The Unitary Patent aims at:

Reducing the current cost of patenting. Patenting an invention in Europe can be costly, as once granted, a European patent can only be enforced at national level. This may also entail translating it into the official language of the country concerned and paying validation and annual renewal fees in multiple states. The Unitary Patent on the contrary will offer simpler and cheaper translation requirements. It will also be subject to a single set of renewal fees. This will allow for a reduced patenting cost.

Improving legal certainty and reducing litigation costs. Patents on inventions with a high market value are frequently the subject of litigation. Due to the lack of a unified litigation system, this leads to parallel lawsuits in different countries and divergent outcomes. The Unitary Patent will be under the exclusive competence of the Unified Patent Court. It will thus depend only on a single set of rules. This should guarantee a unified application of the law and prevent any parallel and discordant law suit. Finally, the decisions of the UPC, will have authority in all participating Member States.

When will it be possible to apply for a Unitary Patent?

Patent holder will be able to request unitary effect for any European patent granted on or after the date of entry into force of the UPC Agreement. It will however not be possible to request unitary effect for patents granted before that date.

In which countries will the Unitary Patent be available?

The Unitary Patent will be available in the participating Member States that have signed and ratified the UPC Agreement.

26 countries (all EU Member States besides Spain and Croatia) have adopted the European Regulations. 25 countries (all EU member states except Spain, Croatia and Poland) signed the UPC Agreement. However, only 15 Member States have so far ratified the UPC Agreement.

The Unitary Patent will be available for the territories of the Member States that have ratified the UPC Agreement. Hence although the Unitary Patent may one day be available for 26 countries, it will start off with less countries. The Unitary Patent will however cover the territory of at least 17 countries (ie the 15 member states that have already ratified the UPC Agreement + UK and Germany). The extension of the Unitary Patent’s territorial coverage will thus be progressive as the rest of the Member States will ratify the agreement over time.

Renewal fees:

To maintain a Unitary Patent, the patent holder will have to pay an annual renewal fee directly to the EPO.

The Select Committee endorsed in December 2015 the True Top 4 proposal for the renewal fees applicable to the Unitary Patent. The True Top 4 corresponds to the total sum of the renewal fees currently paid for the four most frequently validated countries. These are: Germany, France, UK and the Netherlands. The True Top 4 gives also special consideration to the situation of the SMEs.

2nd year:	35 EUR	12th year:	1, 775 EUR
3rd year:	105 EUR	13th year:	2, 105 EUR
4th year:	145 EUR	14th year:	2, 455 EUR
5th year:	315 EUR	15th year:	2, 830 EUR
6th year:	475 EUR	16th year:	3, 240 EUR
7th year:	630 EUR	17th year:	3, 640 EUR
8th year:	815 EUR	18th year:	4, 055 EUR
9th year:	990 EUR	19th year:	4, 455 EUR
10th year:	1, 175 EUR	20th year:	4, 855 EUR
11th year:	1, 560 EUR

For more informations on the Unitary Patent check the Unitary Patent section of the blog.

3 November 201722 March 2018

What are the consequences of an opt-out?

§. Once an opt-out has been notified to the UPC registry and registered:

If it was granted for a European patent application, the opt-out will automatically apply to the European patent in question.

The opt-out will be valid in all Contracting Member States where this patent produces legal effects. There is no need to notify the opt-out separately for the relevant Contracting Member States.

The opt-out will last for the whole life of the patent. It will not be limited to the length of the transitional period.

The proprietor can withdraw the opt-out at any time and decide to opt back in. This opt-in will then be definitive: the patent proprietor will not be able to opt out its European patent again.

It must be noted that opting out will not be possible if an action is already pending before the UPC.

31 October 201722 March 2018

What does it mean to Opt-out a European patent from the jurisdiction of the UPC?

§. What is an “Opt-out”?

The opt-out is the procedure by which proprietors or applicants for a European patent can withdraw their patents from the exclusive competence of the Unified Patent Court.

Only European patents granted or applied for before the end of the transitional period can be opted out. It will thus not be possible to opt-out European patents with unitary effect or Unitary patents.

§. What happens once the patent is opted out?

Once granted the opt-out will take effect in all participating Member States, and the opted out patent will be removed entirely from the jurisdiction of the UPC.

A European patent opted out will thus be under the exclusive competence of national courts. This means that national courts will be the sole jurisdiction before which -for example- actions for infringement or for revocation of the national part of a European patent can be brought.

However, during a 7 year transitional period after the entry into force of the UPC Agreement, the UPC will share jurisdiction with national courts over actions for infringement or revocation of a European patent. Hence, any holder of or applicant for a European patent will be able to initiate actions before national courts. This will be possible regardless of whether the European patent or application concerned has been the subject of an opt-out.

During this period, the UPC will indeed also have exclusive jurisdiction over Unitary patents.

§. When will the opt-out be allowed?

European patent owners will be allowed to opt-out from the start of the sunrise period up to the last month before the end of the transitional period. In other words it will be available from 3 months before the UPC Agreement entry into force to at least 6 years and 11 months after the entry into force of the UPC Agreement.

§. What are the provisional application phase and the sunrise period?

The Provisional Application Phase is scheduled to last for 6 months. The last 3 months, also known as the sunrise period, will specifically allow European patent proprietors to start opting out. The beginning of the Provisional Application Phase is not yet known but could start during the Autumn 2017.

§. What is the transitional period?

The transitional period is a renewable 7 year-period. During this time the UPC will share jurisdiction with national courts over actions for infringement or for revocation of a European patent.

If the UPC Administrative Committee does not extend the transitional period for a further seven years, the UPC will then have perpetual exclusive jurisdiction over Unitary patents and European patents. Opted out European patents will not come back in the UPC exclusive competence once the transitional period is over.

16 March 2014

UPC and Infringement Actions:

The UPC Blog has looked in previous posts at the UPC competence and its sources of law, in this post we want to look specifically into infringement and the changes that the UPC will bring for IP professionals when considering bringing an action for infringement. Hence, the question that the UPC Blog would like to address in this post is simple: “How is the creation of a new unified patent jurisdiction going to impact infringement actions?”

This question is of course very limited in its approach and the UPC Blog would like to invite its readers to submit new questions on this topic, whether linked to their professional practice or on a more academic level. It is also important for our readers to note that the last draft of the rules of procedures being still under review by the Preparatory Committee, this post might be modified and updated in consequence.

We will look first at the definitions of infringement in the European Patent Convention (EPC) and in the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA), and the differences between the two. Then we will limit our observations to the issue of the statute of limitation for an infringement action as it is now and how it will change with the UPCA.

The European Patent Convention looks at infringement actions at article 64 EPC. It starts by defining the rights conferred by a European Patent at 64(1) and (2): “(1) A European patent shall, subject to the provisions of paragraph 2, confer on its proprietor from the date on which the mention of its grant is published in the European Patent Bulletin, in each Contracting State in respect of which it is granted, the same rights as would be conferred by a national patent granted in that State. (2) If the subject-matter of the European patent is a process, the protection conferred by the patent shall extend to the products directly obtained by such process.” And follows by stating at 64 (3) that “any infringement of a European patent shall be dealt with by national law.” Infringement acts are thus defined at national level: their definition, the way national courts qualify acts of infringement, the statute of limitation, etc.. may therefore vary between Contracting States.

Under the UPCA, infringement acts are defined in articles 25 and 26, which give patent holders the right to prevent direct and indirect use of their patent. This definition of infringement as opposed to the EPC will be common to all countries ratifying the UPCA. Hence, under the UPCA a patent is infringed when a third party without the proprietor’s consent “makes, offers, places on the market or uses a product which is the subject-matter of the patent, or imports or stores the product for those purposes; uses a process which is the subject-matter of the patent or, where the third party knows, or should have known, that the use of the process is prohibited without the consent of the patent proprietor, offering the process for use within the territory of the Contracting Member States in which that patent has effect; offers, places on the market, uses, or imports or stores for those purposes a product obtained directly by a process which is the subject-matter of the patent (art 25 UPCA)”

Moreover, under article 32 UPCA, the UPC will have exclusive competence for “actions for actual or threatened infringements of patents and supplementary protection certificates (…) and for actions for declarations of non-infringement of patents and supplementary protection certificates”.

Hence, after the entry into force of the UPCA -officially planned for early 2016- the European Patents and the European patents with unitary effect will both be included in the UPCA’s definition of “patent” (at article 2 ). Accordingly, any action brought against the alleged infringer of a “non opted-out European Patent” and of a European patent with unitary effect will be decided by the UPC applying the definition of the infringement act of the UPCA.

This is precisely what the UPCA aims to achieve: a unified and homogenous European arena for patent infringement actions.

It is not to say of course that the EPC will lose any of its importance. On the contrary it will still be very much relevant. In fact some patent holders might want to opt-out from the UPC and stay under national jurisdictions for the whole of their patent’s lifetime or until they decide to withdraw their opt-out as provided by article 83 UPCA. In these circumstances, the EPC will carry the same weight as it has now, before the entry into force of the UPCA. Furthermore, under article 24 UPCA, the EPC is recognized as a source of law of the UPCA and as such will be relied upon by UPC judges.

But what about the time limits within which claims for patent infringement can be brought?

Under the EPC, statute limitations are determined by national law. For example in Austria infringement claims must be brought within three years from the date the right holder obtains knowledge of both the infringement and the identity of the infringer, whereas in Belgium the time limit is five years. A three-year time limit is nonetheless considered to be the general time limitation, and will be common for most countries. In some countries however, like in France, the date at which the patent holder obtains knowledge of the infringement act is irrelevant (France has just extended to 5 years its 3 year-time limitation in a law adopted by the French National Assembly in February 2014).

The UPC however sets up a different time limit under article 72 UPCA which states: “(…) actions relating to all forms of financial compensation may not be brought more than five years after the date on which the applicant became aware, or had reasonable grounds to become aware, of the last fact justifying the action.” This will of course bring considerable change to professionals whishing to initiate infringement actions by increasing how far back infringement claims can be investigated and thus potentially increasing the number of actions for infringement.

The UPCA -nor the draft rules of procedure- however address the question of the difference between statute limitations of infringement acts and statute limitations of the action for infringement. Hence if the five-year limit stated at article 72 UPCA seems to correspond to statute limitations of the action for infringement, nothing is said about infringement acts.

The Unified Patent Court will thus bring considerable change to infringement actions and the definition of infringement acts for patentees by creating not only a single jurisdiction for European patents and European patents with unitary effect but also by providing a definition of infringement common to all Contracting States. This definition has however its limits and might need to be clarified at a later stage.

This post invites IP professionals to think differently about infringement in the context of the coming entry into force of the UPCA.

The UPC Blog awaits your comments and questions on this post and on any complementary topic.