Cross-border litigation consultation: little time to act

Christopher Stothers, on behalf of the Competition Law Association, has written as follows:

"Some of your readers may be unaware of the European Commission's Green Paper consultation on the Brussels Regulation 44/2001.

This is a broad consultation on the Regulation, based on a 2007 study. Importantly for IP practitioners, the Commission is considering some pretty fundamental changes to the conflict of laws rules applicable to IP disputes. In particular, there are proposals to deal with Italian or Belgian torpedoes and to reverse the outcomes of Case C-4/03 GAT v Luk and Case C-539/03 Roche v Primus, allowing cross-border infringement actions to proceed even where the validity of the patents is challenged before national patent offices or courts.

The website is here and the consultation closes on 30 June 2009.

An ad hoc committee of the LIDC (International League of Competition Law) was set up to respond to the consultation. The committee is chaired by Rhodri Thompson of Matrix Chambers and I've been asked to participate as a representative of the Competition Law Association, which is the British group of the LIDC. Members of the LIDC are welcome to send me their views, which I'll do my best to incorporate in the response (if I get them very soon)".

PatLit endorses the sentiment expressed by Christopher that anyone who wants to make his or her own submissions had best get a move on, given the short time within which one may do so.