“Unitary patent“ and court system – The oral hearing on Spain’s actions at the CJEU

Ingve Stjerna (Rechtsanwalt, Düsseldorf), "Unitary patent" and court system - The oral hearing on Spain’s actions at the CJEU.

"On 1 July 2014, the European Court of Justice (CJEU) held an oral hearing on Spain’s nullity actions against the Regulations on the “unitary patent” and its language regime. Although the three-hour hearing does not allow any direct conclusions on the Court’s position, the “unitary patent package” might face new difficulties whatever the outcome of the proceedings will be. A report from Luxembourg.

The course of the hearing does not allow to deduce any trend for the outcome of the proceedings. Particularly noticeable were the argumentative struggles on the defendant side in relation to Article 118(1) TFEU and the justification of the “referral solution”, which, however, taking into account the unusual approach, does not come as a surprise. Also the defendants’ attempts to present the level of judicial review at the EPO as adequate were not fully convincing, bearing in mind the respective doubts recently communicated in decision R 19/12 by an EPO panel. Not quite surprisingly, the defendants and interveners were also repeatedly playing the “political card”, stressing the political desire to create a “unitary patent” after decades of negotiations. "

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