1 April 2013Jurisdiction reportsIulia Burbea

The new civil procedure code

The new Civil Procedure Code came into force on February 15, 2013.

The rather drastic changes sought to reconfigure the material competence of the courts, with a view to ensuring an equitable distribution of cases which would make the judicial procedures more fluid and quick, would make the summoning and service procedure more effective and would implement procedural mechanisms and instruments aimed at contributing to the settlement of civil cases in a reasonable term.

These include the exceptional character of deferments that may be granted by the court, the duty of the court to set short procedure terms, even of one day, the reorganisation of the civil trial steps with a view to increasing efficiency of the legal act and to reducing the duration of the civil trial, and the reconsideration of the stipulations regarding the means of appeal.

The substantial changes brought about by the new code obviously involve improvements in the settlement of disputes in IP matters. One of the first improvements to be felt when filing new lawsuits will certainly be the significant reduction in the duration of the settlement of IP disputes.

A substantial change that will ensure the speed of dispute settlement is the introduction of a so-called procedure of “regularisation of the motion to institute proceedings” and of the service of process papers between the parties before setting the first trial term.

This change is aimed mainly at making the parties more responsible (they’ll have to file complete process papers in order to avoid trial deferments allowing them to submit missing documents) and, on the other hand, at avoiding deferment for the purpose of serving the process papers.

The competence for solving IP disputes—regarding trademarks and designs, as well as patents—lies, by way of special laws, with the Bucharest Court in cases for cancellation, forfeiture, contesting decisions issued by the national offices, etc. The Bucharest Court comprises panels specialising in IP, therefore its maintained competence as the court of first instance is welcomed.

“A SUBSTANTIAL CHANGE THAT WILL ENSURE THE SPEED OF DISPUTE SETTLEMENT IS THE INTRODUCTION OF A SO-CALLED PROCEDURE OF ‘REGULARISATION OF THE MOTION TO INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS’.”

It is worth mentioning that as far as the disputes over contested decisions issued by the re-examination/contestation commissions of the Romanian Patent and Trademark Office (OSIM) are concerned, generally, the term to file with the Bucharest Court increased from 15 to 30 days and that, according to the new regulations, appeals against OSIM decisions will no longer be assimilated with a phase of appeal but, instead, with judgment on the merits and, consequently, it shall be ruled upon by a single judge.

Under the previous regulations, the objections against an OSIM decision were assimilated with the appeal and, therefore, ruled upon by a panel of two judges.

Another novelty is that the decision pronounced by the Bucharest Court in those cases will be subject to first appeal only and, thus, the removal of the second appeal would shorten the law suit duration until a final and irrevocable solution is passed.

Finally, another welcome change, likely to support IP rights owners and help the enforcement of rights, is the introduction of a special procedure for ordering interim relief in IP rights matters. By an interim injunction the court may provisionally forbid the infringement of the right pending a ruling on the merits or may order precautionary measures in order to preserve the evidence.

In conclusion, we consider that these changes create the legal premise required to reach an important objective for solving disputes in general: reducing the duration of lawsuits. We hope, however, that this aim is achieved without compromising the quality of the legal act, as only then will it be a success.

Iulia Burbea is an attorney at law and partner with Milcev Burbea Intellectual Property & Law Office. She can be contacted at: iulia.burbea@milcevburbea.ro

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