Association of Corporate Counsel Panel on New European Unified Patent Court Features Ropes & Gray IP Rights Management Partners

The Association of Corporate Counsel’s San Francisco Bay Area chapter (ACC SFBA) will host a seminar panel on the new European Unified Patent Court (UPC) featuring intellectual property rights management partners Edward Kelly and Charles Larsen (both of Boston).

The panel titled “The Impact of the Unified Patent Court on U.S. Companies” focuses on how the UPC will impact the intellectual property filing and enforcement strategies of U.S. companies and what preparations need to be made. Other topics include the selection of UPC judges and the effects of not having substantive provisions. The panel will be held in San Francisco on Nov. 10 and in East Palo Alto, Calif. on Nov. 11.

The UPC will centralize patent litigation throughout most of the European Union and is scheduled to open in late 2016 or early 2017. The UPC is expected to rival U.S. courts as the preferred venue for major patent disputes, as patent holders will be able to obtain an EU-wide injunction via a single litigation.

The continuing legal education (CLE) panel will include guest speaker Kevin Mooney, U.K. solicitor and chairman of the committee tasked with drafting the rules and procedure of the UPC. The ACC Patent Law Committee program is sponsored by Ropes & Gray.

The subject matter is addressed in a new book by Mr. Kelly, Mr. Larsen, intellectual property rights management partner Anita Varma and counsel Christopher Carroll (both of Boston) titled European Patent Practice for U.S. Attorneys that explores substantive and procedural differences between European patent law and U.S. patent law. The book is scheduled for publication by Bloomberg BNA in 2016.

To register for the ACC SFBA seminar, click here.