Presidency note on the structure of the Community Patent Court (CPC)

Brussels, 19 Nov 2002

Full text of Document 13784/02

5 November 2002

NOTE
from: Presidency
to: Permanent Representatives' Committee (Part 1)
No. prev. doc.: 13408/02 PI 62
No. Cion prop.: 11684/02 PI 41 COUR 6
Subject: Community patent - jurisdictional arrangements

Following discussions at the meeting of the Permanent Representatives' Committee (Part 1) on 30 October 2002 on key issues regarding, mainly, the structure of the Community Patent Court (CPC), the Presidency herewith submits for further consideration by the Committee, and with a view to preparing the forthcoming meeting of the Competitiveness Council on 14 and 15 November 2002, the following elements as a basis for taking work forward on the jurisdictional arrangements of the Community patent.

1. The CPC shall consist of a central chamber and regional chambers located in different parts of the Community and being an integral part of the CPC.

2. Regional chambers may be established once the workload of the Central chamber of the CPC reaches a critical ceiling in terms of volume of cases rendered in a given year. They may be set up in any Member State in accordance with strict and objective criteria.

3. Two or more Member States may request that their territories be considered as one for the purpose of allocating a regional chamber.

4. Appeals to the judgements of the CPC will be heard by the Court of First Instance.

5. The legal instruments to be used for the setting up of the above jurisdictional arrangements will be the ones described in the Commission services' working document (document 11684/02 ).

6. The Council Decision under Article 229a ECT (Nice) will contain an explicit mention of the type of competences to be transferred to the Court of Justice (CoJ), it being understood that the detailed rules on the material competence of the CPC will be set out in the Council Regulation on the Community patent.

7. Appropriate arrangements shall be agreed to ensure that the judges sitting in the CPC receive adequate technical support.

8. Further discussions are necessary in order to agree on the language question.

The Committee is invited to agree to the above principles as a basis for the Community patent jurisdictional arrangements as part of an overall compromise package on the Community patent system as a whole.

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