EU Unified Patent Court / Unitary Patent: New Council Documents

A number of EU Council Documents relevant with regard to the Unitary Patent / Unified Patent Court have recently been published:

• Document 16222/12 [2012-11-14] Draft agreement on a Unified Patent Court and draft Statute – Consolidated text. Prepared by Cyprus EU Presidency.
• Document 16221/12 [2012-11-14] Updated draft declaration of the contracting Member States concerning the preparations for the coming into operation of the UPC agreement. Prepared by Cyprus EU Presidency.
• Document 18855/11 [2012-11-13] COMMON GUIDELINES Consultation deadline for Croatia: 23.11.2012
• Document 15765/12 [2012-11-05] Corrigendum to Council Decision 2011/167/EU of 10 March 2011 authorising enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection.
• Document 14750/12 [2012-10-12] Draft agreement on a Unified Patent Court and draft Statute – Consolidated text. Prepared by Cyprus EU Presidency.

Especially Document 16222/12 appears to be of particular interest today; it reflects the shift of provisions of substantial patent law from the Draft Regulation into the Unified Court Agreement.

Concerning professional representation of parties by European Patent Attorneys, the state of play appears to be as follows:

Article 28
Representation

(1) Parties shall be represented by lawyers authorised to practise before a court of a Contracting Member State.
(2) Parties may alternatively be represented by European Patent Attorneys who are entitled to act as professional representatives before the European Patent Office pursuant to Article 134 of the EPC and who have appropriate qualifications such as a European Patent Litigation Certificate.
(2a) Moved down as (3a)
(3) The requirements for qualifications pursuant to paragraph 2 shall be established by the Administrative Committee. A list of European Patent Attorneys entitled to represent parties before the Court shall be kept by the Registrar.
(3a) Representatives of the parties may be assisted by patent attorneys, who shall be allowed to speak at hearings of the Court in accordance with the Rules of Procedure.
(4) Representatives of the parties shall enjoy the rights and immunities necessary for the independent exercise of their duties, including the privilege from disclosure in proceedings before the Court in respect of communications between a representative and the party or any other person, under the conditions laid down in the Rules of Procedure, unless such privilege is expressly waived by the party concerned.
(5) Representatives of the parties shall be obliged not to misrepresent cases or facts before the Court either knowingly or with good reasons to know.
(6) Representation in accordance with paragraphs 1 and 2 shall not be required in proceedings under Article 15(1)(g).

The Administrative Committee mentioned in Para. (3) is defined in Article 9a and will be composed of one representative of each Contracting Member State.