L'accordo istitutivo del Tribunale unificato dei brevetti e la sua incidenza sulla disciplina della giurisdizione in materia civile nell'Unione europea

The present study deals with the agreement establishing a unified patent court signed by 25 EU Member States on 19 February 2013 and its impact on the rules on jurisdiction in civil and commercial matters as contained in Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012 (s.c. “Brussels I-bis”), which is deemed to replace shortly the existing Brussels I Regulation. The study analyzes the proposal submitted by the European Commission on 26 July 2013 (COM(2013) 554 final) providing for the amendment of Regulation Brussels I-bis in order to ease the application of the rules on jurisdiction as contained in the Regulation to the unified patent court, as a judicial body common to the Member States having established it. The amendments proposed by the Commission appear welcome in that they provide for the enlargement of the territorial scope of the competence of the unified patent court, a competence which the agreement itself grants as exclusive. Nonetheless, the proposal falls short of addressing effectively the problem of coordination of the exclusive jurisdiction provided for under Article 24.4 of the Regulation (i.e. Article 22.4 Brussels I) in respect of actions concerning registration or validity of intellectual property rights including European patents with other heads of jurisdiction such as that provided for under Art. 7.2 of the same Regulation (i.e. Article 5.3 Brussels I) in respect of actions in matters of tort or delict, such as those concerning infringement of the same rights.