German French UPC Supremacy? by Willem Hoyng, HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER  

Under the heading Juve Patent Survey 2021 Juve uses the title “UPC favourites: French and German judges dominate”. Juve suggests that its findings are based on Juve’s own worldwide survey of 1300 “patent experts”.

We do not know (other than the indication “heads of patent departments in selected technology companies across Europe as well as lawyers and patent attorneys with patents experience”) who these 1300 patent experts are; how many of these so-called experts have litigated patent cases; and how many of them have litigated several cases in front of the judges they nominate and/or have studied in depth the decisions of these judges.

What we, however, do certainly know is that the survey was clearly French/German biased with more than 70 percent of the respondents being based in these two countries. One can hardly call this a representative survey for Europe, let alone for all the potential users of the UPC among which many will be found in non-European companies. Moreover, as with so many of these types of surveys, it is very simple to sway the outcome.

If a surveyee favors a certain judge (and the patent IP world is very small) it is very easy for the surveyee to seek the support of friends in voting for that same judge.

The entire contribution can be read here.