The Unified Patent Court, a new supranational court specialised in patent litigation, based on the Unified Patent Court Agreement signed by 25 Member States of the European Union will have a wide and exclusive competence in respect of infringement and validity of European patents and European patents with unitary effect.
It will consist of a Court of First Instance, a Court of Appeal and a Registry. The Court of First Instance will comprise a central division with seat in Paris and sections in London and Munich as well as regional divisions and local divisions located in the Contracting Member States. The Court of Appeal will be located in Luxemburg.
The start of operations is planned for early 2017, and it is expected that the Unified Patent Court quickly becomes a leading patent court at international level with rapidly growing caseload.
The recruitment of legally qualified and of technically qualified judges of the Unified Patent Court (Court of First Instance and Court of Appeal) has been launched with the publication of the vacancy notices at https://www.unified-patent-court.org/. The deadline for applications is 4 July 2016.
