Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent in Isle of Man and other territories

Imagine, just try to imagine, you are a territory. Not just any territory... No, you have a close relationship with the European Union state responsible for your external affairs, but you are -regarding most issues- not part of the EU. Your EU member state is also a European Patent Convention contracting state and has extended application also to you: a European patent in force in "your" EU state, also applies in you. In fact, when the EPC thinks about the member state responsible for your external affairs, it deems that your territory is covered by it.

Change!

But, things are about to change for you, little territory! Several EPC contracting states have made an agreement giving "unitary effect" to European patents in their territory, thus ao solving the problem that different decisions may be made by judiciaries regarding the same patent. From an EPC point of view, you are fully included in that agreement and the unitary effect will also apply to you. Unfortunately however these EPC contracting states have shaped their agreement regarding unitary effect as European Union Regulation 1257/2012, in which they state in Article 1(2) it is also an Agreement in the context of EPC Article 142. Now, article 142 EPC agreements of your contracting state apply to you, but European Union regulations generally don't apply. 

Your contracting state has also signed the Unified Patent Court Agreement. It's clear that applies to you regarding litigation on non-unitary-effect European patents as is explicit from Article 34: 

"Decisions of the Court shall cover, in the case of a European patent [without unitary effect], the territory of those Contracting Member States for which the European patent has effect."

But for European patents with unitary effect that's not so clear because their jurisdiction is arranged in EU instruments. Whether the agreement as a whole applies to you is also unclear, as the agreement is silent with regards to it, but... it is concluded between the contracting parties "member states of the European Union", and you are not considered part of the territorial scope of EU instruments.

So what applies to you?

So, the big question remains: does the unified patent court agreement as a whole apply to you and does the unitary patent apply to you. And if not? what then? What happens if your EU member state's European patent gets unitary effect, and you are left as ..., well as what?

The answer is complicated, that's clear from the discussion above and it is a pity that the drafters of the unitary patent regulation and UPC agreement have not been more clear in their drafting. That means the answer is i) unclear and ii) varies by territory

If you are an EPC-covered territory connected to the Netherlands (Caribbean Netherlands, Curaçao or Sint Maarten), your government considers, even after suggestions not to in a public consultation (see my blogposts here, here and here):

• i) the unified patent agreement can not apply to you (and even uses an approval procedure for the agreement excluding you! despite Article 34 above)
• ii) unitary patents don't apply to you. If a European patent gets unitary effect, a small mini non-European patent will remain (called by me EP-NL-carib), covering just you and your fellow territories. What it costs is unknown, but you'll have to pay renewal fees and fulfil translation requirements. 

However, we still don't really know, as the act has not been presented in its final form to parliament.

If you are an EPC-covered territory connected to France, then we still have no idea. The approval law is silent and no provisions were made. I guess, you'll just have to wait and see.

If you are an EPC-covered territory connected to the UK, then you must be... the Isle of Man. That means you have requested in 2013 already to be part of the unified patent court. And today, the UK government has given you most of the required clarity today

• i) it will extend the Unified Patent Court Agreement to you (jay!)
• ii) that means -according to the UK- that the unitary patent regulation will also apply to you. Unfortunately it is unclear why your government thinks this is possible. That's problematic: it is not the UK that determines the territorial scope of the Regulation but -at least in last instance- the CJEU that decides that. So I am not sure if you are fully satisfied by this solution. Of course the UK could unilaterally consider it applies unitary patent legislation to you (which could also be implemented as my favourite implementation strategy: after the unitary patent applies in the UK, a national European patent -EU(UK-Man) remains, just covering you, to which -as stated in national law- the unitary patent rules apply; which means in practise: you're covered by the unitary patent). But if that's the case and infringement takes place in your territory, will the Unified Patent Court take jurisdiction? 

Conclusion:

The present situation for you as a territory is either uncertain (French territories), certain and as requested but with legal risks (UK-related) or undesirable and legally incorrect (Dutch territories). Maybe it's time to call your fellow territories and together demand the clarity and a clear route how to implement that!

My suggestions: after joining, ask your member states to

1. change the UPC to explicitly allow extending the UPC agreement to non-EU territories, part of the EPC (and that is a change that doesn't require a diplomatic conference or ratification by all)
2. ask your member state to conclude an international agreement between NL, UK, FR and the EU, extending the scope of the Unitary patent regulation to you, in a similar way that many EU regulations are applied to Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (the famous "texts with EEA relevance"). 

Who knows, they well might listen!