The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has announced the publication of the Presidium’s decision on the designation of the presiding judges of the Court’s first instance divisions. As described in October 2022 in UPC judges appointed, a case in a local division will usually be heard by a panel of three judges and, depending on the number of patent cases a country has heard per year, either one or two of those judges will be a national legally qualified judge. In those local divisions with only one national legally qualified judge, that judge has been designated the presiding judge. (It appears that the national judge for the Copenhagen local division has not yet been appointed.) The role of the presiding judge in a main action includes designating one of the legally qualified judges in the panel (who may be themselves) to be the judge-rapporteur and then, when the oral procedure starts (after the written and interim procedures), taking over the management of the action.