The Unified Patent Court consists of a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal and the Registry. The Court of First Instance is composed of local divisions (set up in individual Member States), regional divisions (which can be set up jointly by Member States that do not wish to establish a local division of their own), and the central division.
Every Member State may set up one local division. Additional local divisions can be set upon a Member States’ request for every one hundred patent cases per calendar year during three successive years. Sweden, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania agreed to set up a joint "Nordic-Baltic regional division" seated in Stockholm.
If a Member State has local or regional divisions, their competence is determined according to the place of infringement or the domicile or principal place of establishment of the defendant. If a Member State does not have a local or regional divisions or if the defendant's seat is outside a member state, the Central Division is competent. Furthermore, the parties may also agree on the jurisdiction of the Central Division.
The Central Division is located in Paris and Munich with a third location in Milan still to be established. The jurisdiction between the three sections is determined by the subject matter based on the WIPO International Patent Classification.
The Court of Appeal has jurisdiction over all complaints and appeals. The Central Division deals with actions for revocation and with negative declaratory actions. The local and regional divisions are competent for infringement actions and counterclaims for revocation.
The panels of the Court of First Instance have a multinational composition and shall generally sit in a composition of three legally qualified judges. At local divisions with more than 50 cases per year, the panel is composed of two legally qualified judges from the Member State hosting the division and one legally qualified judge from other Member States. At local divisions with fewer than 50 cases per year, the composition is the other way around.
Upon the request of a party or the panel, one technically qualified judge can be allocated from the pool of judges. Panels at the central division are always composed of two legally qualified judges and one technically qualified judge. The Court of Appeal is set up with three legally qualified judges of different nationalities and two technically qualified judges.
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