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24 May 2023PatentsTom Phillips

UPC limits 'non-essential' functions of under pressure case management system

Steps taken to ‘maximise’ system’s ability to deal with opt-outs before June 1 | High demand before the end of the sunrise period puts pressure on court’s IT | Full details on who’s affected.

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has temporarily stopped some “non-essential” functions of its case management system (CMS) to maximise its capacity to deal with opt-out requests, before the end of the sunrise period on June 1.

In a notice posted yesterday (May 23), the UPC said it had discontinued all public application programming interfaces (APIs), including those which allow external users to retrieve a list of opt-out cases linked to a patent number, or the list of representatives in the system.

“In view of the approaching end of the sunrise period, we are striving to ensure that all those who want to file opt-outs can do so, and this is still within the sunrise period,” said the UPC.

“Be sure that we are closely monitoring the performance of the CMS to ensure we will be able to handle all opt-outs before the end of the sunrise, whether they are filed via API or via CMS front end.”

Performance issues and improvements

A week earlier, the UPC said it had improved the CMS after it faced “performance issues” due to a high number of instructions to the database.

Such problems occurred, in particular, when filing opt-outs via the user interface, as well as when using APIs (public and private).

Other improvements included increasing the CMS’ infrastructure capacities, a request sent to important API users to limit their requests only to necessary ones, and the clearing of stagnant statuses in the queue backlog.

“For the benefits of the overall community, we will appreciate it if you can limit the usage of APIs as much as you can by avoiding multiple requests of statuses and receipts,” the UPC said, before announcing this week that it would be switching off some APIs entirely.

Offline periods

The court also notified users of changes to the CMS as it gears up for the launch of the Entry Into Force (EIF) version system. These include periods when the pre-production (CMS CERUS) and production (CMS) will be offline.

“We suggest that the ‘last’ massive batch of opt-outs, prior to the EIF launch date, is sent for the 30/05 at 4PM CET,” said the court.

More UPC coverage

WIPR is tracking the most important news and analysis in the run-up to the court’s launch.

The performance of the CMS has garnered criticism since the sunrise period began on March 1. The end of the sunrise period is the deadline by which rights owners must opt their patents out of the Unitary Patent system, or they will automatically be included.

This week, UPC Judge Florence Butin gave detailed answers to industry questions on the court’s operation.

And last week, it was finally decided that Milan, alongside Paris and Munich, would host a seat of the court’s central division. London had originally been earmarked for the seat but officially withdrew its participation after leaving the EU.

Meanwhile, the complexities of opting out patents formed part of a panel discussion organised by HGF and Wolters Kluwer in Singapore.

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