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

虽然欧洲专利于1973年建立，以保护整个欧盟的知识产权，但迄今为止，仍然没有统一的司法管辖权来诉讼和执行欧洲范围内的知识产权。该报告重点关注当前国家分散的知识产权制度之间的制度融合过程，以及一个真正的跨国机构--统一专利法院的出现。鉴于欧盟成员国之间的知识产权诉讼结果的差异的最新证据，该项目比较了两个主要的欧洲大陆知识产权制度，以回答两个研究问题：司法信仰和法律的规范的解释如何在法国和德国的区域和国家管辖区之间存在差异，以及这些信仰和解释最终如何收敛以体现统一的管辖权？该研究开创了一种新结构的制度化理论，将制度和网络方法结合起来，以解释协调和执行司法信仰，解释和实践的关系机制。作为混合方法研究设计的一部分，一个由两波对专利法官的定性访谈组成的小组绘制了法国和德国多样化的司法信仰和解释的“颜色”;而一组在专业“趋同事件”中进行的正式网络调查则辨别了产生“这些颜色变化”的关系机制。在研究统一专利法院的出现作为一个从地理上分散的各种司法机构的融合体内的情况下，ENUED是在一个独特的历史地位。欧洲区域间司法多样性研究所将收集关于欧洲一个精英司法领域的实质性和关系性原始数据，并将有助于更好地了解跨国机构是如何在这一过程中从区域间司法多样性的起源中产生的。建立一个合法有效的统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一个重大进步。在社会经济相关性方面，法国经济发展研究所正在寻找共同的法律的机构可以帮助法国和德国通过共同提供和执行专利的共同观点来增强各自国家创新体系的力量的方法。

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.