Legal Documents

The principles for the Rules of Procedure of a European patent court were approved on 4 November 2006 under the chairmanship of Sir Robin Jacob (UK) by the patent judges attending the second Venice Forum held in San Servolo by the Intellectual Property Judges Association (IPJA) and the European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW).

The Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court were drafted between 2009 and 2015 by a Drafting Committee comprising Kevin Mooney (UK), chairman, Klaus Grabinski (DE), Winfried Tilmann (DE), Alice Pezard (FR), Pierre Véron (FR), Willem Hoyng (NL), Christopher Floyd and Colin Birss (UK), with the support of Eskil Waage (EPO).

The 17th draft dated 31 October 2014 was discussed during a public hearing held in Trier on 26 November 2014. Following this public consultation, the draft Rules were provided on 31 January 2014 to the Preparatory Committee, in which the Legal Working Group, chaired by Johannes Karcher (DE), held a number of rounds of discussion, leading to the acceptance of the 18th draft by the Preparatory Committee on 19 October 2015.

Amendments to this 18th draft were discussed at the Inaugural meeting of the UPC Administrative Committee on 22 February 2022, prior to adoption of the Rules, on 8 July 2022, with entry into force on 1 September 2022. 

The French version of the Rules of Procedure of the Unified Patent Court, adopted on 31 August 2022 by the Administrative Committee, has its origin in a translation produced and reviewed by Pierre Véron and his team as part of the process of adapting and finalising the translation of the English version together with the French Ministry of Justice, the Belgian Ministry of the Economy (FPS Economy) and the Luxembourg Ministry of Foreign and European Affairs .