The story of the creation of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court was like the game ‘Fortunately, unfortunately’, according to Pierre Véron. The French patent litigation specialist was the founder and first president of the European Patent Lawyers Association (from 2001) and has been involved in the creation of the Unitary Patent Package from the very beginning. Less than four months before the launch of the new system, Kluwer IP Law interviewed Véron and asked him how it all started.
‘As EPLAW we met with the European Commission many times during the decade 2000-2010. The Commission considered the creation of a patent covering the whole of EU as one of its highest priorities. In 2007, I was appointed as the French expert patent litigator to assist the Commission in the drafting of what became the Unified Patent Court Agreement, signed in Brussels on 19 February 2013. Later, during the decade 2010-2020, I was a member of the drafting committee of the Rules of Procedure of the new court. In that period I was also heard by the European Parliament on the future European patent litigation system. Read more