Empowering Judges: WIPO Unveils Guide for Effective Patent Case Management

WIPO today published An International Guide to Patent Case Management for Judges — a comprehensive, accessible and practical guide to the different stages of patent litigation.

This new flagship publication is part of WIPO’s vision for a balanced and effective approach to intellectual property that works for everyone, everywhere.

Focused on ten patent heavy jurisdictions, the guide has applicability around the world. The guide draws on the expertise of some 70 contributors – prominent judges, renowned practitioners and leading legal academics in the patent field.

WIPO’s vision is for a balanced and effective approach to intellectual property that works for everyone, everywhere. This requires that the judicial structures around IP respond effectively to the needs of each Member State while, at the same time, working harmoniously across territorial boundaries to engage with the demands of an interconnected and increasingly digital world. We hope that the guide will promote greater knowledge, as well as the cross-pollination of judicial approaches and best practices as we work towards this important global goal.

Daren Tang, WIPO Director General

Patent protection plays a central role in promoting innovation, and as the impacts of innovation have increasingly transcended international boundaries, the need for a working familiarity with different national and sub-national patent systems has increased. Although their work often is the subject of international treaties and cooperation agreements, national patent systems, judicial institutions, and enforcement regimes vary significantly across jurisdictions. The overarching goals of the guide are to enhance understanding of international patent protection, share best practices for improving patent case management, and promote international comity.

Jeremy Fogel, Executive Director, Berkeley Judicial Institute

Each chapter of the Guide offers an overview of the patent system in the respective jurisdiction and details the procedures and practices of case management, while integrating pertinent patent law doctrines. The Guide also offers a customization function that allows readers to tailor the Guide to address specific questions or jurisdictions with a simple click of a button. The topics covered include:

• the role of patent offices in evaluating and deciding on patent validity
• the judicial structures responsible for resolving patent disputes
• early case management
• claim construction
• provisional measures
• discovery and gathering of information
• summary judgment
• evidence
• trial
• remedies

About WIPO Judicial Institute

The WIPO Judicial Institute works to strengthen judiciaries as part of the IP and innovation ecosystems in Member States. It fosters transnational dialogue on IP for the judicial community; conducts targeted studies to promote in‑depth understanding of topics of relevance to the global IP judiciary; provides education and resources for IP judges, and through WIPO Lex, contributes to the wider availability of legal knowledge on IP‑related treaties, laws, and judicial decisions.

The WIPO Judicial Institute is part of WIPO’s IP and Innovation Ecosystems Sector, which supports Member States in developing their IP and innovation ecosystems to drive economic growth.

About WIPO

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property policy, services, information and cooperation. A specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO assists its 193 member states in developing a balanced international IP legal framework to meet society's evolving needs. It provides business services for obtaining IP rights in multiple countries and resolving disputes. It delivers capacity-building programs to help developing countries benefit from using IP. And it provides free access to unique knowledge banks of IP information.

For more information, please contact the News and Media Division at WIPO.