Agreement on Unitary Patent / Unified Patent Court To Be Reached Until 22 December 2011

On our corporate IP law blog ksnh::law, we published a series of articles documenting the latest developments of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court in Europe: JURI mandates Rapporteurs to Negotiate Unitary Patent with EU Council Behind Closed Doors (25 Nov '11), Rushing To Set Up The EU Unified Patent Court (24 Nov '11), JURI Legal Committee Of The European Parliament Deals With EU Unitary Patent (24 Nov '11). Patent Attorneys Beware of Lobbying: Fight for your Right to (Represent) Parties (21 Nov '11), EU Unified Patent Court – EU Parliament / JURI Re-Opens Debate On Role Of Patent Attorneys (07 Nov '11). Now, Document 1757539/11 of the Polish EU Presidency comprises under item 11 the following notice: The Presidency announced its intention to organise the initialling ceremony whereby the text of the Agreement could be finalised in Warsaw on 22 December 2011. The Presidency considers that the Member States should be able to arrive at a political agreement on the text of the Agreement at the meeting of the Competitiveness Council on 5 December 2011 on the basis of this set of compromise proposals, despite the fact that some issues of political importance could be left to be agreed at a later stage, but before the signature of the Agreement. I wonder if the Warsaw ceremony only is intended to celebrate the Agreement or to also reveal that Warsaw has been selected as the location of the Unified Patent Court (i.e. of either the Central Division of the Court of 1st Instance or even the Court of Appeals), as speculated in this earlier posting. Anyway, the Presidency's notice is in line with a time schedule published on the European Parliament website. While the latest versions of the EU Council's Draft Agreements are the “Proposal for a Regulation [...] implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of unitary patent protection” dated 23 June 2011 (Document 11328/11) and the “Draft Agreement on a Unified Patent Court and draft Statute” dated 19 October 2011 (Document 15539/11), the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament recently mandates its three Rapporteurs to conduct the required negotiations about the "Patent Package" with the EU Council behind closed doors (see also this posting). The reports that represent agendas the three JURI Rapporteurs will follow in the negotiations are the following (see also this posting): Rapporteur Bernhard Rapkay (S&D, Germany) is in charge of 'Unitary Patent Protection': Document PE472.059v02-00: Draft Report on the proposal for a Regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council implementing enhanced cooperation in the area of the creation of unitary patent protection (COM(2011)0215 – C7-0099/2011 – 2011/0093(COD)) including Amendments 1 – 44 and Document PE475.775v01-00: Amendments 45 – 94. Rapporteur Raffaele Baldassarre (EPP, Italy) is in charge of the 'Translation Arrangements': Document PE472.334v02-00:…