Introduction by Andrew Berger
Wondering where to litigate your IP disputes abroad? One of the firm’s new partners, Albert L. Jacobs, Jr., recently summarized for our litigation group two friendly venues IP practitioners may not be aware of: the Irish Commercial Court and the Dubai International Financial Center Courts. Below is Albert’s summary. But first here is some background about Albert.
With more than 30 years of experience in patent law, Albert concentrates his practice in the areas of life sciences, especially pharmaceutical and biotechnology, medical, chemical and health care, and business method intellectual property law and litigation. In addition, he has extensive experience in intellectual property cases before the International Trade Commission. He has also successfully represented semiconductors and business method patent litigation, at the trial level and at the Court of Appeals for the Federal Circuit and has successfully reversed several Markman rulings for his clients. He is author of Patent and Trademark Forms in Four Volumes, and co-authored Patent and Trademark Forms. Albert is a graduate of Harvard and Columbia Law School where he was a Harlan Fiske Stone Scholar.
Here is Albert’s summary of these two venues:
The Irish Commercial Court
The Irish Commercial Court is a division of the Irish High Court and was established in 2004. It provides very efficient and effective dispute resolution in commercial cases. While the minimum value of the dispute must be at least 1MM Euros the Court is fairly liberal in construing this threshold amount.
The Court uses a hands on case management system which streamlines the preparation of the case of the case for trial and minimizes the opportunity for either side to run up unnecessary cost or to stall. The procedure also ensures a relatively full and fair pre-trial disclosure.
At the current time, disputes are often adjudicated within 27-30 weeks from the date of filing.
This court can be particularly useful in Transborder Agreements. Such agreements can specify that any disputes under the agreement should be adjudicated before the Commercial Court of Ireland and that fully vests the court was sufficient jurisdiction. The law applied would be essentially that of the U.K. For more information about this court, click here.
The Dubai International Financial Center Courts (DIFC)
The DIFC Courts are a court system within a court system in Dubai. The ability of the DIFC Courts to hear disputes was recently broadened from oversight over civil and commercial disputes related to companies in the tax-free business area to allow both regional and foreign firms to file disputes with the English language DIFC rather than the Arabic-language civil courts. British common law is applied.
The expansion of the court’s jurisdiction beyond commercial disputes related to companies in the tax-free business part offers an alternative of forum for fairly rapid resolution of disputes under Transborder Agreements. As was the case with the Commercial Court in Ireland it would be necessary for the agreement between the parties to specify that disputes under the agreement would be adjudicated by the DIFC courts and that would be sufficient to confer jurisdiction. For more information about the Dubai International Financial Center Courts click here.
Thanks Albert. If you wish further information about these venues or have a questions about patent prosecution or protection, please contact Albert directly at jacobs@thsh.com. For more information about Albert, click here.