Last
month we published an
article by Gottfried Schüll and Arwed Burrichter of
Cohausz & Florack in Düsseldorf, Germany in which
they argued that bifurcation – the German-style
practice of separating the infringement and validity hearings
of a patent dispute – should be welcomed.
"The UPC will make use of the bifurcation system, which
makes perfectly good sense and is something that should be
embraced and not feared, as it will provide clearer and quicker
results," they write.
At my invitation, Adam Cooke of DLA Piper in the UK has
written a
response, which addresses why some people have concerns
about bifurcation. UK practitioners are typically sceptical
about bifurcation, but Cooke argues that the UPC Rules take a
balanced approach.
However he adds that the Rules could be further refined "to
ensure that the central division's decision on revocation is
actually issued before the regional/local division's decision
on infringement, and/or that an injunction should not be
enforced until after the decision on validity or unless the
patentee has provided suitable security".
We’ve temporarily opened up both articles so
that subscribers and non-subscribers can read them.
We’d also welcome your comments, which you can
post below.
The articles will be published in our March issue, along
with a selection of any comments we receive on this blog, on
LinkedIn or via
Twitter by February 20.