Decision-Making in the Unified Patent Court: Ensuring a Balanced Approach

Abstract

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) will become a central player in the future development of European patent law. For this reason it becomes important to ensure that UPC‘s decision-making reflects the double-function of the Court as an adjudicator of individual disputes and a policy maker. Because of its institutional design, the UPC will be biased towards technology based values. Therefore, there is a risk that non-technical values and interests will be either overlooked or underdeveloped in UPC decision-making which is likely to jeopardize public trust and legitimacy of its decisions. This paper analyses how these blind spots can be covered in patent litigation before the UPC within the current legislative framework. The paper focuses on the role of UPC judges as case-managers and decision-makers, on the potential role of third party interveners, and addresses the key role of the parties in establishing the basis for UPC decisions.

Keywords: Unified Patent Court, patent law, EU, procedural law, amicus briefs