This guest post is by Angelos Dimopoulos, Assistant Professor at Tilburg Law School and Petroula Vantsiouri, Doctoral Candidate at the University of Cambridge, Faculty of Law. I invited the pair to write this post to help explain how the new pan-European patent court might fit within the current EU structure (that already includes the EU Court of Justice. – DC
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Any practitioner who has been involved in patent litigation in the European Union (EU) is well aware of the inconsistencies in the Member States patent law and the differences among national litigation systems. Disturbingly often the same case is litigated in several jurisdictions, under different procedural and evidentiary rules with uncertain timing of outcomes. In that respect, it comes as no surprise that the recent initiatives regarding the creation of a European patent with unitary effect (EPUE) and a ‘Unified Patent Court‘ (UPC) are currently the hottest IP topics in Europe. In short, the EU intends to introduce a EU-law based patent right that will be valid throughout the territory of 25 of the 27 EU Member States (Italy and Spain remaining outside) and a single patent court at the European level with exclusive jurisdiction as regards infringement and revocation proceedings, covering the same territory.
The UK government and a number of patent holders are lobbying for limiting the role that the Court of Justice (CJEU), the highest court in the EU in matters of EU law, will play in patent litigation in Europe. In our view this is simply wrong. In our recent paper called “Of TRIPS and traps: The interpretative jurisdiction of Court of Justice of the EU over patent law“, we provide two main arguments in support of this claim. First, we argue that regardless of the final wording or the adoption of the proposed EU legislation, the Court of Justice can acquire a stronger role in the application of patent law by using its interpretative jurisdiction over the patent provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. Secondly, we argue that this role is a significant tool in the process of establishing a complete and uniform framework for patent protection in the EU.
So far the CJEU has been hesitant to apply and interpret the TRIPS patent provisions. In a series of cases concerning the TRIPS Agreement, as they were crystallised in Merck Genericos, the CJEU clarified that the interpretation of the substantive patent provisions of the TRIPS Agreement lie outside its jurisdiction. This means that up to now Member States can decide according to their national laws how to interpret the TRIPS provisions on patents. However, after the entry into force of the Lisbon Treaty (which amended the constitutional charter of the EU in 2009) Merck Genericos is no longer good law. Article 207 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU) vests the EU with exclusive competence over commercial aspects of IP and brings the TRIPS agreement within the scope of EU law. In that respect, the CJEU has now acquired significant powers to determine whether national (and in the future Union) patent rules are interpreted consistently with the TRIPS agreement.
This has significant implications for the development of patent rules in the EU. Currently, patent law in the EU is characterized by a lack of harmonization, although there are some uniform rules. All 27 Member States have acceded to the European Patent Convention (EPC), which established the European Patent Organisation (EPO) and a system of law for granting patents for inventions. Thus, national laws of EU Member States are de facto harmonized in the field of patentability and validity but only as regards the grant of patents. Issues of validity and infringement after the patent grant are matters for national law and national courts. But even in the fields covered by the EPC, uniformity is not always present. In many instances the EPO and national authorities interpret the EPC in diverging ways. Many national authorities do not take each other’s case law into consideration, and even if they do, differences in legal traditions, policy choices or practicalities can lead to different outcomes.
The proposed EU patent with unitary effect and the proposed Unified Patent Court cannot change all that. The proposed legislation does not guarantee the establishment of truly uniform rules. As the proposals now stand, substantive issues (prior user rights, assignments, voluntary and compulsory licensees and government use) are left outside the scope of the proposed Unitary Patent Protection. Moreover, if adopted, the proposals will lead to four different types of patents within the EU. Finally, with Spain and Italy not participating in these projects, the EU will be partitioned in three territories.
So, how can the Court of Justice fix that?
First, although the TRIPS agreement is very broad as regards the subject matter of patent protection, it contains specific rules on prior users’ rights and exceptions, including in particular compulsory licenses, which are subject matters left outside the scope of the proposed regulation. Article 1 TRIPS requires that WTO members “give effect” to its provisions, which signifies that a WTO member should take all reasonable measures to ensure consistency between domestic law and the agreement. So, the CJEU can use its interpretative jurisdiction to establish common minimum rules with regard to the subject matters that could be left outside the scope of harmonization.
Secondly, the Court’s interpretative jurisdiction can result in the establishment of minimum, uniform standards of protection for the different types of patents. In its previous caselaw (Hermes and Dior) the Court held that “where a provision can apply both to situations falling within the scope of national law and to situations falling within the scope of [Union] law, it is clearly in the [Union] interest that, in order to forestall future differences of interpretation, that provision should be interpreted uniformly, whatever the circumstances in which it is to apply.” Considering that the regulation on European Patents with Unitary Effect will be part of Union law, the Court of Justice can employ the TRIPS agreement in order to determine the standards of protection under national and EPO-granted patents by reference to the standards of protection of European Patents with Unitary Effect, so as to ensure uniform implementation of the TRIPS agreement in the EU.
Thirdly, the interpretative jurisdiction of the Court can mitigate the danger that arises from the existence of parallel adjudication regimes for patent protection. By allowing the CJEU to determine whether national courts abide by the TRIPS when they adjudicate patent infringement cases, the CJEU can act as the single, ultimate judicial authority in the EU, ensuring coherence and consistency in the interpretation of the different regimes of patent infringement rules.
In short, although it cannot contribute to the reduction of litigation costs, at least initially, the CJEU’s interpretative jurisdiction over TRIPS provisions can promote legal certainty, and the establishment of uniform and comprehensive patent protection in the EU that would be attractive to the industry and conducive to technological progress. Nevertheless, the power to interpret the TRIPS is not a panacea. It does not result in the establishment of uniform substantive rules, as the TRIPS is a minimum standards agreement, while its success depends on the number and subject matter of the actual cases that will reach its jurisdiction under the preliminary reference procedure.