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Introduction new CMS Unified Patent Court delayed

Kluwer Patent blogger

October 5, 2022

The Unified Patent Court has postponed the introduction of a new login process for its content management system, based on a strong authentication schema, to the end of October.

Late August, the UPC announced the implementation would take place ‘in the next release of the UPC CMS v0.65’ and would be activated mid or end of September 2022, but apparently this deadline turned out not to be feasible. According to the UPC IT team, this is ‘due to the time required to acquire electronic IDentification certificates and physical secure devices (smart Card or token)’.

The delay has seemingly no influence on the start date of the UPC. As JUVE Patent reported, ‘during this year's AIPPI World Congress in San Francisco, it was speculated that the UPC launch has been postponed to the second quarter of 2023. However, (…) UPC Administrative Committee chair Alexander Ramsay (…) denied any further delay to the court’s start.’

Last July, the UPC announced ‘the timing of the start of operations of the Court can reasonably be expected to occur in early 2023’. The first of March 2023 has regularly been mentioned.

According to Article 89, the UPC Agreement will enter into force and the UPC will open its doors on the first day of the fourth month after Germany deposits its instrument of ratification with the secretariat of the European Council. If this blogger interprets this clause correctly, it means Germany would have to complete the ratification formalities in November, in order for the court to start functioning in March.

Comments (21)

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Concerned observer

October 5, 2022 AT 7:37 PM

Have any of the readers of this blog managed to identify a secure device that has been: - tested by its provider (using the UPC's test page, https://cmsdemo.netserv.it/login); and - confirmed to meet the UPC's eIDAS certification requirements? My efforts on this point have so far drawn blanks ... and I have reason to believe that even exhaustive searching might not (yet) yield any positive results. However, I would be very interested to hear if any readers have had more luck (and, if so, with which provider). In any event, I note that the UPC's IT team have indicated that a FAQs section will be added for the secure device / eIDAS certification requirements. This, I believe, represents an acknowledgement that the information provided to date is somewhat lacking ... if not verging on completely useless. The FAQs section is not there yet. We are therefore still left guessing precisely which (eIDAS) certificates will need to be loaded onto our secure devices. Further, in the absence of any delay to Germany's ratification timetable, we are likely to no more than about a month to obtain our devices once the UPC's requirements have been clarified ... assuming, of course, that by then there will be at least one provider of suitable secure devices! The UPC therefore seems to have arrived at a situation where it will be impossible for all eligible patent attorneys to obtain working secure devices in time for the start of the sunrise period. Although I hesitate to cast aspersions, this mess seems to be entirely of the UPC's own making, and can only serve to seriously dent its reputation before it even gets off the starting blocks.

LightBlue response to Concerned observer

October 6, 2022 AT 9:48 AM

Concerned, may we ask which of the eIDAS providers in your country have you tried without success? From the tone of your post it would appear that all have been tried and none have been satisfactory.

Han Shot First response to LightBlue

October 6, 2022 AT 4:27 PM

I've not heard confirmation of a working device yet either. We've looked at a couple of providers that could supply to the UK market but neither currently has a product that would meet the UPC requirements (as far as they are understood). One of these providers is trying to speak to the UPC IT team but aren't getting any response at the moment. If the March 2023 start date is what's being aimed for then this would be concerning from the point of view of anyone that's going to be expected to register a ton of opt-out requests in the sunrise period. As noted by Concerned Observer, it wouldn't leave much time at all to get the devices in place before needing to use them. There are also still issues with the opt-out process itself on the CMS platform. Manually opting out a case is time intensive and I'm not aware of a working bulk opt-out solution yet (and if there are any such solutions out there then they'll presumably need retooling slightly to account for the authentication scheme). It's unfortunate that the way the processes have been designed that the newly minted CMS platform is likely to see one of it's busiest periods shortly after it is switched on. Can't help but think this will lead to its own issues. I've also heard the comment that prototype bulk opt out tools have run into speed limitations when trying to send test opt out requests to the system.

The phrase "large-scale IT project" is always a portent of d response to Han Shot First

October 6, 2022 AT 10:23 PM

@Han Shot First: Like you, I've also heard that the UPC is simply not responding to enquiries (multiple patent firms in my own country report the same). I wonder if this is a sign that the UPC is overwhelmed by the volume of correspondence. Or maybe just that nobody is monitoring it. It is quite simply incredible that the UPC has apparently decided on IT requirements which nobody knows how to meet, and has placed the onus on its prospective users to figure all of this out, while also leading us to believe that the sunrise period will start imminently. Surely the UPC should have discussed this with potential providers first before putting us all in this position? The issues with the CMS and the opt-out process are also a big cause for concern. Clients are increasingly asking us when we will need instructions to process opt-outs - and how much (if anything) we will charge for doing so. At the moment it doesn't feel like we can give a good answer to that without knowing how well the CMS will cope with automated requests, and how much time and effort will be needed on the part of the users. Another unhelpful factor is the lack of any real knowledge about the timetable that we all face. Start dates of 1 March and 1 April have both been rumoured recently, putting the start of the sunrise period close to the end of 2022 or start of 2023, but we still have no clear idea if that is realistic or whether we will get any kind of official notice before the DE ratification is completed. The nightmare scenario for so many practitioners is that Germany ratifies "by surprise", starting the sunrise period without real warning. UPC preparation is one of many tasks being dealt with simultaneously by IP law firms and I find it frankly unacceptable that we have to rely on guesswork and rumours to try to work out how to prioritise any outstanding tasks and get ourselves completely ready for the start of the sunrise period, never mind keeping non-European patent holders engaged (so many of them have heard the phrase "the UPC is imminent" so many times over the last decade that they've stopped paying attention, and in many cases are still confused about basic aspects of the Unitary Patent and UPC). It's a fiasco.

Inventive but not New response to Han Shot First

October 7, 2022 AT 11:27 AM

As far as my search went, just take your already established electronic signature (mobile or smartcard) and check with your provider whether this service is conform with eIDAS. If yes, you should be in, if no, just order a better card now. As to the CMS authentication test site, I interprete the start with end of November according to a pdf published by the UPC yesterday (also disclosing a likely UPC-A entry into force date).

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