The European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW) has confirmed to the EPO that it would gladly cooperate with the EPO’s European Patent Academy on developing and delivering the UPC judicial training programme.  EPLAW’s written confirmation of its offer follows discussions between EPLAW board members and EPO Patent Academy representatives at the recent conference in Budapest on training of UPC judges. The EPO appreciates EPLAW’s current key role in training patent judges, in particular through its annual conference of the European patent judiciary in Venice; in October 2013 this was attended by 50 leading patent judges, patent litigation lawyers, EPO representatives and the European Commission and included a mock patent infringement trial under UPC Rules.