Just a couple of days ago, the announcement by the Court that no agreement could be reached among Member States and therefore the competencies of the London seat of the Central Division would be split between Paris and Munich opened a debate on the possibilities for Milan to host the Central Division.
The Italian Government has however now announced – in no uncertain terms – that an agreement was reached with France and Germany and that Milan will indeed host the third seat of the Central Division. The decision will be formalized during the next meeting of the Administrative Committee.
From the press release of the Minister of Foreign Affairs: “The Italian government has agreed with France and Germany to establish in Milan the third seat of the Central Division of the Unified Patent Court. The arrangement will be submitted to the other UPC contracting states at the next Administrative Committee meeting. […] In these weeks the Italian government, in cooperation with the local government entities, is completing the legal and operational procedures so that the seat can be established and be operational within a year.”
Notably, the press release does not address the hot issue of which competencies will be assigned to the Milan seat of the Central Division (whether all those originally assigned to London by the UPC Agreement, or a subset thereof), simply stating that this will have jurisdiction over “important cases” in matters relevant for the Italian industry.