On 5 May 2015, the Preparatory Committee held its 9th meeting in Luxembourg. The most notable development was the announcement of a consultation on the future Unitary Patent Court fees and the recoverable costs. The consultation paper will be released on Friday 8 May 2015 and will run for 12 weeks; it will be available on Bristows’ UPC website tomorrow morning.

The Preparatory Committee also dealt with some other matters: there was satisfaction with the CJEU’s dismissal earlier that day of the second Spanish challenge; broad agreement for progress via a written agreement for the European Patent Litigation Certificate; and recognition of the successful completion of the first two modules of UPC judge training.

Finally, the issue of the transitory phase (i.e. the provisional period between now and when the UPC Agreement comes into effect) was discussed. The UPC Agreement did not provide for a preparatory period to allow for training of judges, IT systems, recruitment and appointment of people and judges etc, so there was fruitful discussion as to how this will be managed. It is seen that The Vienna Convention route is a possibility, although this is not without hurdles, for example, as to membership of the Convention, namely France.