The UPC Administrative Committee held its first meeting in Luxembourg on 23 February 2022, according to a press release published on the UPC website. This represents an important step towards setting up the UPC, following the start of the provisional application period on 19 January 2022 (see our report here).

The meeting was attended by representatives of all contracting Member States and a number of observer Member States. The key decisions made at the meeting were as follows:

  1. The Administrative Committee's Rules of Procedure were adopted. Note that that these are distinct from the Rules of Procedure of the UPC, which are currently in draft form and are discussed further below. Other legal instruments (such as the Rules on the European Patent Litigation Certificate and other appropriate qualifications, the Court's Service and Staff Regulations, and the Financial Regulations) were also adopted.
  2. The members of the Advisory Committee were appointed. The Advisory Committee is composed of patent judges and patent law practitioners from contracting Member States and will interview candidate judges for the new court from the end of March 2022. These judges will go on to be appointed by the Administrative Committee later this year, and will then form panels adjudicating disputes in different divisions of the UPC.
  3. A number of Member States officially confirmed their intention of setting up a local or regional division of the UPC, in particular: Austria, Belgium, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany (4 local divisions), Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia, Sweden (regional Nordic-Baltic division) and Portugal.
  4. Alexander Ramsey was elected as Chair of the Administrative Committee and Mr Johannes Karcher was elected as Deputy-Chairman. Alexander Ramsey previously chaired the UPC Preparatory Committee and Johannes Karcher previously chaired the Legal Working Group of the UPC Preparatory Committee.

It had previously been suggested that at the start of the provisional application period the Administrative Committee would consider several proposals for the amendment of the Rules of Procedure of the UPC. For example, it has been proposed that provision is made for confidentiality clubs, and that an amendment is made to allow for online oral hearings when appropriate. However, there is no indication in the press release that these matters were discussed at Wednesday's meeting.

Other steps that remain to be taken in the provisional application period include training for the appointed judges, elections for the President of the Court of First Instance and the Court of Appeal, and the appointment of a Registrar and Deputy Registrar.

It is likely that the sunrise period, during which applications to opt-out can be made in advance of the UPC commencing and representatives can apply for registration, will start in the late summer or autumn of 2022. This means that the UPC is likely to enter into force in Q4 of this year or at the start of 2023.

Our fully integrated, market leading European patent litigation team is ready to advise on all aspects of the practical and strategic issues you should be considering in preparation for the UPC. Please contact us for further information. Here is a link to our UP and UPC hub.

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