4 ms·
"opposed on public policy grounds, i.e. negative effects software patents and increased cost of litigation (and maybe that should've been done during the negoti
by zoobab 6y ago
"opposed on public policy grounds, i.e. negative effects software patents and increased cost of litigation (and maybe that should've been done during the negotiations on the treaty)."
Problem is that the Court Fees were decided after the treaty has been signed, by this administrative committee.
And they are defeating the purpose of "making the whole system cheaper", as it would raise the cost of litigation for a simple case.
We warned about this problem long ago, with the predecessor of the UPCA, the EPLA:
http://epla.ffii.org/analysis http://epla.ffii.org/analysis
"A litigation case before the EPLA court will at least be twice as expensive as litigation before the national courts of Germany, France or the Netherlands."
Stjerna's analysis of the cost situation is roughtly the same, a 3 fold increase for a simple case:
https://www.stjerna.de/files/Unipat-Affair.pdf https://www.stjerna.de/files/Unipat-Affair.pdf
- Quanttek 6y agoCorrect me if I'm wrong, but isn't this supposed price increase in Stjema's analysis only based on the maximum reimbursement allowance for lawyers? Hence, this only pertains to the potential for increased costs, not actual increased costs. Also, the obvious advantage of a European court is that one does not need to enforce one's patent in all State jurisdictions separately, right? Stjema shows how this duplication is actually lower than assumed (bc most companies choose to only enforce it in one country) but wouldn't the assumption be that the need for enforcement in more than one jurisdiction increase as the internal market for knowledge products becomes ever-more integrated? Although I see how it could be more expensive right now (and software patents still suck) I would mainly love to see a response regarding the legal side.
- zoobab 6y agoThe actual percentage of cross-border litigation, now that the UK has left, is around 7% of all cases. 93% of cases are national only, and will suffer from an increase of costs just for the beauty of having a pan-European court. For the legal side and the rules of procedure, we have been informed from several high profile lawyers (one being on the bench of one of those decisions) that this would not survive a test in front of the ECHR, once the UPC is running.