We know the judges of the Unified Patent Court!
The Unified Patent Court has announced the appointment of 85 judges. As many as 60% of the panel presented are technically qualified judges. This opens up the prospect of swift proceedings and fair sentences. The information was awaited by patent experts from almost every jurisdiction. The judges listed below are soon to begin administrative and organisational work in order to start adjudicating on the day the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court comes into force (1 April 2023).
The UPC will comprise a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal. The former will be led by Florence Butin (President of the Court of First Instance) and the latter by Klaus Grabinski (President of the Court of Appeal). The Presidium of the UPC will be completed by two judges from the Court of Appeal, Rian Kalden and Ingeborg Simonsson, and three judges from the Court of First Instance: Camille Lignieres, Ronny Thomas and Peter Tochtermann. Furthermore, Ms Rian Kalden has been elected as Presiding judge of the second panel of the Court of Appeal.
Many of the elected judges already preside over patent cases in UPC member states. Some also work for the Boards of Appeal of the European Patent Office. Experts from JWP Patent & Trademark Attorneys have many a time handled cases in which future UPC judges have also been involved.
The names of the judges appointed to the Unified Patent Court announced yesterday should come as no surprise. Judges such as Dr. Klaus Grabinski and Prof. Peter Blok have been dealing with patent issues from an academic and practical perspective for years. From this it can be anticipated that the decisions by the UPC will be at a high expert level, comments Tomasz Gawliczek, PhD, JWP’s expert on the European unitary patent system.
As far as patent attorneys and entrepreneurs are concerned, it should be uplifting for them to see that the vast majority of appointed judges are technically qualified. In the complicated world of patents relating to, for example, genetic engineering or advanced inventions relating to AI, knowing that your decision is being taken by informed judges who are technically capable of assessing the disputed solution gives a great sense of security, adds Piotr Godlewski, national and European patent attorney.
Full list of the panel of judges in the Unified Patent Court:
UPC legally qualified judges
UPC Court of Appeal
Klaus Grabinski
Patricia Rombach
Françoise Barutel
Peter Blok
Rian Kalden
Emanuela Germano
Ingeborg Simonsson
UPC Central Division Courts of First Instance
Central Division, Paris
Florence Butin
Paolo Catallozzi
Maximilian Haedicke
Tatyana Zhilova
(waiting)
Central Division, Munich
Mélanie Bessaud
Ulrike Voß
(waiting)
UPC local divisions, Courts of First Instance
Local division, Vienna
Walter Schober
Local division, Brussels
Samuel Granata
Local division, Copenhagen
(waiting)
Local division, Helsinki
Petri Rinkinen
Local division, Paris
Carine Gillet
Camille Lignieres
Local division, Düsseldorf
Bérénice Thom
Ronny Thomas
Local division, Hamburg
Sabine Klepsch
Stefan Schilling
Local division, Mannheim
Holger Kircher
Peter Michael Tochtermann
Local division, Munich
Tobias Pichlmaier
Matthias Zigann
Local division, Milan
Pierluigi Perrotti
Alima Zana
Local division, The Hague
Edger Brinkman
Margot Kokke
Local division, Lisbon
Rute Lopes
Local division, Ljubljana
Mojca Mlakar
Nordic-Baltic Regional Division
Kai Härmand
Stefan Johansson
UPC technically qualified judges
Biotechnology
Arwed Andreas Burrichter
Eric Enderlin
Paolo Gerli
Krister Karlsson
András Kupecz
Roman Maksymiw
Cornelis Schüller
Chemistry and pharmaceutics
Michael Alt
Kirsikka Etuaho
Renaud Fulconis
John Meidahl Petresen
Stefanie Parchmann
Laure Sarlin
Casper Struve
Steen Wadskov-Hansen
Carola Wagner
Electricity
Pascal Attali
Eric Augarde
Bertrand Cochet
Grégoire Desrousseaux
Alain Dumont
Dennis Kretschmann
Alessandro Sanchini
Andrea Scilletta
Simon Walker
Mechanical engineering
Michel Abello
Uwe Ausfelder
Koen Callewaert
Giorgio Checcacci
Paolo Ernesto Crippa
Claus Elmeros
Frédéric Gaillarde
Bernard Christiaan Ledeboer
Elisabetta Papa
Martin Schmidt
Uwe Schwengelbeck
Max Tilmann
Marie-Paule Vandeberg
Patrice Vidon
Pascal Lucien Pierre Weber
Stefan Wilhelm
Physics
Michael Fleuchaus
Anders Max Hansson
Ulrike Keltsch
Gérard Myon
Dörte Otten-Dünnweber
Andrea Perronace
Christoph Dominik Schober
Patrik Rydman
