Representing you at the UPC
Our expertise is your advantage
The UPC is the biggest change to European IP law in five decades. At Carpmaels & Ransford we are here to help you navigate these changes to the European patent system and represent you each step of the way.
More than 50 Carpmaels attorneys are deeply involved in active UPC litigation and many more in UPC related advice: we have more than 80 qualified UPC representatives and over 30 litigators with experience of national and UPC litigation.
We are one of the few firms that can use the same team to handle parallel disputes in the EPO, UPC and UK courts, while also coordinating national actions across Europe. Although a new court, the UPC is an amalgamation of the laws and procedural practices of the main European patent-litigating countries, most notably those of the UK (whose lawyers contributed to the development of the court and its rules), Germany, and France. While its legal judges come from many backgrounds, the UPC technical judges are typically European patent attorneys who approach patentability with a strong EPO flavour. This means that our European patent attorneys have been able to leverage their extensive EPO oral and written advocacy experience at the UPC. English has become the dominant language of proceedings at the UPC, and our teams have been able to present seamlessly in a wide range of UPC settings.
We have recently expanded our presence in Germany, and our litigation team includes German, French and Dutch litigators, making us able to staff UPC matters with creative, diverse teams. Our teams are currently leading cases in the Munich, Düsseldorf and Paris Local Divisions and in the Munich and Milan branches of the Central Division, as well as at the Court of Appeal.
We are currently representing clients in more than 20 UPC actions, including preliminary injunction proceedings, and infringement and revocation actions, and we have also acted in 9 appeals to date, including ongoing appeals of first instance infringement and revocation decisions. From the outset, we have handled some of the most high-profile, technically complex and valuable cases at the UPC, including successfully leading the first ever revocation action at the Central Division, and the first ever UPC case involving an SPC. Carpmaels is especially active in the healthcare sector, acting in more than 25% of all UPC actions concerning therapeutics – including a third of all actions relating to biologics – as well as multiple disputes in the diagnostics and medical devices spaces.
Where our European patent attorneys are opposing third party patents, we are ready to launch parallel nullity actions at the UPC and defend our clients against any infringement claims. There are only a few short months provided by the UPC rules for defendants to respond to an action, so using patent attorneys and European patent litigators who are already working on the relevant patent will be crucial to a successful defence.
If you would like to discuss strategic considerations around the UPC, please email your usual Carpmaels contact who will be able to advise alongside our team of litigators. Our team is here to answer any questions you may have on substantive UPC issues, as well as on practicalities surrounding opt out requests and the Unitary Patent. Our UPC Landscape tool shows the states involved and our UPC Guide provides further information about the key features of the court.