Administrative Committee approves final UPC Code of Conduct
Last week, the Administrative Committee adopted the Code of Conduct for judges recruited to work at the Unified Patent Court. While it is not yet public, the update was confirmed at the request of JUVE Patent by members of the Presidium and the Advisory Committee. Both were involved in drafting the final version of the code.
4 May 2023 by Mathieu Klos
The Unified Patent Court has not yet published the Code of Conduct on its website. However, this will take place shortly. According to JUVE Patent sources, the final version remains largely unchanged from the first version.
In October 2022, the UPC announced its final list of judges. Shortly thereafter, concerns surrounding potential bias among the 43 technically qualified judges, all of whom hail from industry and the legal profession, ignited a public debate. The community questioned whether, if 35 technical judges from the legal profession are advising UPC clients in parallel, they can be fully independent.
Officials issue Code of Conduct
During the first judicial training sessions, which took place in January 2023, the UPC Presidium presented the court’s new judges with a first draft of a Code of Conduct. The code will supplement the existing rules on judicial independence in the UPC contract and statutes.
The key point was that UPC judges cannot also oversee UPC proceedings as lawyers. However, the rule that UPC judges cannot advise a client if the instruction could potentially become a UPC case had caused particular displeasure.
Through this strict regulation, the new court wants to remove all concerns that the judges cannot act independently. After the release of the first draft, some UPC judges were outraged that their judicial role would no longer be compatible with their work as a lawyer.
Code restricts advisory work
The final draft of the UPC Code of Conduct will probably maintain this hard line. As a result, there are fears that some technical judges may resign before its 1 June start, due to concerns about it impacting their other legal work. According to JUVE Patent information, remuneration for technical judges will be on a case-by-case basis.
However, Willem Hoyng, chair of the UPC Advisory Committee, told JUVE Patent that the UPC is well-equipped to deal with possible resignations.
Hoyng says, “During the last recruitment round for technically and legally qualified judges for the reserve list, the UPC received 329 applications, among which about 150 were from potential technically qualified judges. These candidates do not work in private practice, but for national courts, national patent offices and other institutions. So there will be absolutely no problem in making sure that, at the start of the UPC there are sufficient numbers of technically qualified judges not working in private practice.”
