As the UPC goes from strength to strength we look at how the new court system is working to increase capacity at the top

Many UPC judges share their working time between the UPC and national courts of their country. The Unified Patent Court has announced that, to account for increasing case load, working hours of UPC judges in a number of local divisions as well as in the two currently operating central divisions as well as the Court of Appeal have recently been or will be increased in the near future.

Moreover, the appointment of a new judge, Daniel Voß, to the Munich Local Division and new judge, Dirk Böttcher, to the Local Division in Manheim has been announced. To further increase capacity in the Munich Local Division a judge of the Munich Central Division, Ulrike Voß, will spend additional time working at the Munich Local Division. Importantly, Matthias Zigann, the presiding judge of the Munich Local Division, will change his working hours to be a full time judge at the Munich Local Division. With judges expected to take on so many extra hours, in addition to their work for their national courts by the end of year one of the UPC, should we expect a UPC recruitment drive to ramp up further as we enter year two?

Subscribe to regular UPC updates from Marks & Clerk here.