Paris, Monaco Germany and the United Kingdom with London
The European Council of 28-29 June 2012 reached an agreement in relation to the future place of the Central Division of the Court of unitary patent for which candidates were France with Paris, Monaco Germany and the United Kingdom with London.
The agreement was reached with a compromise that raises some concerns as the headquarters of the Court has been attributed to Paris with an indication that the former president will come from the host country and therefore will be French, but in
London and Monaco have been attributed respectively a section of the Court specializing in chemical and pharmaceutical industry and jurisdiction in the matters referred to in Class C and Class A of the International Classification, while Monaco has been given a special section in mechanical engineering and for everything included in Class F international classification.
The agreement also specified the situations in which the parties to a dispute will have the choice to bring this action before the central division rather than the local or regional division.
Finally, the Council has “suggested” that Articles 6 to 8 of the proposed regulation on the unitary patent will be deleted. This is a suggestion and therefore it is possible that the Council and the European Parliament, which must approve the text of
Regulation eventually decide otherwise. It is, as many know, is an important point because these items determine the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice on matters of a patent relating to the validity of the patent and also to the method of assessment of any infringement. And ‘well known that this prediction was determined by an opinion of the Court of Justice (issued on 8 March 2011 on the previous draft agreement for the establishment of a Court of the European Union patents) but was strongly opposed by many patent experts and the industry in general and of this dispute apparently has stood at the European Council British Prime Minister.