In 2025, a new Unified Patent Court Committee emerged from our UPC Task Force, which we established following the formation of the court. The committee’s purpose is to promote our members’ activity before the UPC, project the UK’s leading international role in UPC representation, and to act as a forum for discussion in UPC practice. The committee fulfilled its brief through a range of activities throughout the year.
Events
Conference
On Thursday 11 September, the committee held its inaugural UPC Conference at the Law Society in London. The conference sold out, with over 130 delegates attending. Four UPC judges participated to share their thoughts and opinions. Judges Emmanuel Gougé, Anna-lena Klein, and Ronny Thomas spoke on a panel chaired by Richard Davis KC, and Judge Max Tilmann spoke of the role of a technical judge. A keynote speech was given by Professor Willem Hoyng, chair of the UPC Advisory Board, which explored whether the UK should rejoin the UPC. A range of sessions covered case law, practitioners’ experiences, and long-arm jurisdiction.
The conference theme, The UK at the heart of the UPC, reflected discussions throughout the day. UK Chartered Patent Attorneys represent the second-largest national cohort of registered UPC representatives and have already been instructed in a significant number of cases since the court’s launch in June 2023.
CIPA is proud of its members’ contributions, which underline the UK’s continued importance on the international stage and the strong cooperation within the profession. Images from the conference can be found on our website here.
Other CIPA events
As well as the UPC Conference, the UPC was a prominent topic across several other CIPA events. Notably, CIPA Congress featured a UPC panel with Judges Christoph Schober and Margo Kokke sharing their personal views on evolving practice at the UPC. During the session, Sir Robin Jacob gave his view that the UK should rejoin the UPC, adding that domestic politics was the only impediment. For the first time, the Patent Case Law Tour 2025 included sessions on UPC case law, with presentations from UPC Committee members Darren Smyth and Rachel Fetches and Conor Wilman from Dehns. In another first, CIPA hosted its first meeting for members and locally based patent attorneys in the Low Countries in November, with presentations given by UPC Committee Chair, Rob Jackson, and patent attorneys from Hoyng Rokh Mongier.
Committee work
Consultations
The UPC Committee submitted responses to three UPC consultations. In August 2025, the committee, along with support from CIPA members Michael Silverleaf and Clive Thorne, submitted responses to the consultations by the Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) regarding the draft arbitration rules and draft regulatory framework governing the procedure, which were published in the September Journal. The committee also submitted a short response to the draft rules on expert determination of the PMAC, based on comments from Michael and Rob Jackson, UPC Committee Chair.
Newsletter
In May 2025, the first UPC newsletter was sent to members of our UPC Interest Group, which, at the time of writing, has over 400 members. This quarterly newsletter provides Interest Group members with updates from the committee, case law and webinar news, and promotes CIPA members’ activity and involvement in the UPC and highlights key UPC-related events, both by CIPA and other external associations.
Other notable actions
In January, the committee wrote an open letter to the UPC Court of Appeal regarding the Suinno Mobile & AI Technologies Licensing Oy v Microsoft Corporation case and the decision that employed European Patent Attorneys, or other legal practitioners who are UPC representatives, cannot act on behalf of their employers as they are not sufficiently independent. Following this, and other letters in support from the IP Federation, the Court took the view that, since self-representation is not permitted under the UPC, this bar extends to companies being represented by those who control them.
Rob Jackson joined Lee and Honorary Secretary Gwilym Roberts on an INTA 2025 special episode of our podcast, Two IPs In A Pod. He also spoke at CTC Legal Event’s Winter IP Conference at a session entitled ‘Strategic possibilities in the UPC era: leveraging the UPC potential for patent enforcement’.
Committee members participated in the UPC call for participation from its CMS users to test the Court’s batch opt-out APIs (application programming interface). After the new CMS was launched, Emily Flood and Sarah Taylor provided a handy overview of the new platform here.
External Meetings
Rob Jackson attended several meetings with international associations in his capacity as Committee Chair to discuss UPC matters and highlight the prominent position of UK Patent Attorneys before the UPC. He met with the Irish Association of Patent and Trade Mark Attorneys (APTMA) in March, and the Intellectual Property Institute of Canada (IPIC) in June, the Patentanwaltskammer (PAK) and Board of the American Intellectual Property Law Association (AIPLA) in November.