From local diversity to transnational institutionalization: The emergence of the European Unified Patent Court

尽管欧洲专利于1973年建立，以保护整个欧盟的知识产权，但到目前为止，仍然没有统一的司法管辖权来在欧洲范围内提起诉讼和执行知识产权。统一的重点是国家支离破碎的知识产权制度与一个真正的跨国机构--统一专利法院的出现之间目前的体制趋同过程。鉴于最近有证据表明欧盟成员国之间的知识产权诉讼结果存在差异，该项目比较了欧洲大陆的两个主要知识产权制度，以回答两个研究问题：在法国和德国的区域和国家司法管辖区内，对法律规范的司法信念和解释是如何不同的，以及这些信念和解释最终如何融合，以体现一个统一的管辖权？统一化开创了一种新的制度化结构理论，将体制和网络方法结合在一起，以说明协调和执行司法信仰、解释和做法的关系机制。作为混合方法研究设计的一部分，对专利法官进行的两波定性采访为法国和德国不同的司法信仰和解释勾勒出了不同的颜色；而在专业的“趋同活动”上进行的一系列正式网络调查则辨别出了导致这些颜色发生变化的关系机制。统一处于独特的历史地位，研究统一专利法院的出现，作为司法机构中地理上分散的各种形式的融合的活体案例。统一将收集关于欧洲精英司法领域的实质性和关系性原始数据，它将有助于更好地了解跨国机构在这一过程中如何从区域间司法多样性的起源中产生。建立合法有效的单一知识产权制度将是欧洲单一市场推动和保护未来技术创新的重大进步。在社会经济相关性方面，Uniform正在寻找一种方法，通过共同提供和执行关于专利的共同观点，帮助法国和德国增强各自国家创新体系的实力。

Although the European patent was established in 1973 to protect intellectual property across the European Union, to date there is still no unitary jurisdiction to litigate and enforce IP rights at European scale. UNIFIED focuses on the current process of institutional convergence between nationally fragmented IP regimes and the emergence of a genuine transnational institution: the Unified Patent Court. Given recent evidence of the differences in IP litigation outcomes between the EU member states, this project compares the two leading continental European IP regimes to answer two research questions: How do judicial beliefs in and interpretations of legal norms vary across the regional and national jurisdictions of France and Germany, and how do these beliefs and interpretations eventually converge to manifest a unitary jurisdiction? UNIFIED pioneers a neo-structural theory of institutionalization that integrates institutional and network approaches to account for the relational mechanisms that harmonize and enforce judicial beliefs, interpretations and practices. As part of a mixed-methods research design, a panel of two waves of qualitative interviews with patent judges draws the ‘colors’ of the variegated judicial beliefs and interpretations in France and Germany; while a set of formal network surveys at professional ‘convergence events’ discerns the relational mechanisms that produce a ‘change in these colors.’ UNIFIED is in a unique historical position to study the emergence of the Unified Patent Court as an in-vivo case of convergence from a geographically fragmented variety in judicial institutions. UNIFIED will collect original primary data, both substantive and relational, on an elite judicial field in Europe, and it will contribute to a better understanding of how transnational institutions emerge, in the process, from the origin of interregional judicial diversity. Creating a legitimate and effective unitary IP regime will be a major advance for the European single market to propel and protect future technological innovativeness. In terms of socio-economic relevance, UNIFIED is looking for ways in which a common legal institution could help France and Germany boost the strength of their respective national innovation systems by jointly providing and enforcing a common perspective on patents.