MPs: Unified EU patent court framework would hurt small biz A new court framework that would rule on validity and infringement cases stemming from proposed new unitary patents in the EU would be "prohibitively expensive" for small UK businesses to use, a committee of MPs has said. In a report analysing plans for the development of a new unified patent court (UPC), the House of Commons …
Am I being dumb or is the only reason to site the court in the UK (why it needs to be London again doesn't seem to be explained......), that UK SME's will face translation cost issues, although surely the same applies to German SME's or French or whatever if it's in a country with a different language.
The argument that most patents are also likely to be submitted in the USA and therefore will need the english translation in any case might hold a little more water.
How smart are MP's......
No. It makes sense to site in UK, because most EPO patents are in English, and the actual words are important. And English is the language, not only of international business, but of European businesses that operate in more than one country.
But none of that is the real reason for having the Court in UK. That is because the new system tries infringement separately from validity. Infringement is decided quickly - validity (in Continental courts) may take years - maybe five years or more. So you can be put out of business by an injunction that - years later - proves to have been wrongly granted.
Best would be to try validity and infringement together. But the Germans won't have that. If so, the only answer is to have the Court in London - where a decision on validity can be obtained in less than a year. This is the only hope for a fair and workable system.
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