Momentum building for the UPC

The unitary patent and Unified Patent Court will have wide-ranging implications for life sciences companies. In the first of what will be a regular column on the topics by law firm Taylor Wessing, Paul England explores current developments on issues such as costs and judges.

Not many years ago, the conventional wisdom was that the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) would usually follow the opinion of its Advocate General (AG) on any question before it, but that it could not be guaranteed to do so.

More recently, and although it is still a minority, the proportion of cases in which the CJEU has not followed the AG has increased. What does this mean for the challenges by Spain to the legislation implementing and governing the unitary patent and its translation arrangements?

The Spanish government’s two challenges to the patent were filed before the CJEU on May 31, 2013. It sought a declaration that the Unitary Patent Regulation which provides for the patent is legally non-existent or should otherwise be annulled, and a request that the ‘Translation Regulation’, providing rules for the patent’s language, is annulled in whole or in part. In other words, the action is intended to stop the unitary patent in its tracks.