The UPC long-arm jurisdiction and the UK

Abstract

... The Unified Patent Court (UPC) is a court system running in parallel to national courts of European Union (EU) Member State countries that are not participating in the UPC, as well as national courts that are outside the EU but members of the European Patent Convention (EPC). This raises matters of the UPC’s jurisdictional relationship with those national courts. The relationship between the UPC and the non-UPC EU Member State courts is governed by the Brussels Regulation.1 Once the UPC has begun, the Brussels Regulation will allow, in certain circumstances, the continuance of cross-border actions between the national courts of non-UPC Member States and the UPC itself. But what about non-EU countries and, specifically, the UK, which is no longer a party to the EU or Brussels Regulation? This article examines how cross-border matters between the UK and the UPC will be regulated and how the UK courts might respond.