Meeting of the Working Group on Industrial Property Rights and Technical Contracts in Düsseldorf

At the meeting of the Working Group on Intellectual Property Rights and Technical Contracts on September 17 at the Düsseldorf office of CMS Hasche Sigle, the experts of the working group exchanged views with the presiding judge and member of the Presidium of the Düsseldorf Local Division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), Ronny Thomas, on initial experiences and practice regarding the unitary patent and the Unified Patent Court. Marc L. Holtorf from the law firm Pinsent Masons gave an opening statement on the experiences with the UPC from the user's point of view. Ronny Thomas then reported on initial trends in the case law of the UPC. There was a consensus that the European unitary patent system, which came into force in June 2023, has made a promising start and has the potential to develop into a leading international court in patent litigation.