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As of 1st of June 2023, after years of negotiations, setbacks and postponements, the Unitary Patent Package (UPP) enters into force: the European patent with unitary effect (EPUE) becomes a reality and the Unified Patent Court (UPC) starts its activities. Regrettably, the patent regime put in place is not a genuine EU system. Adopted through an enhanced cooperation procedure, it firstly does not include all EU Member States. Secondly, the conditions and the procedure for granting EPUE is in the hands of the European Patent Office, an international organization to which EU is not a party. Lastly, the substantive provisions and the litigation proceedings are defined by an international treaty (the UPC Agreement) to which EU is not a member, and by national laws for the remaining aspects. Such system carves patent law out of the EU legal and judicial orders and reduces the roles of the EU Parliament and Court of Justice. Challenges are numerous in terms of complexity, harmonization objectives, legality, business advantages and wider societal, economic and legal concerns, to name a few. With twenty-eight contributions from academics and practitioners, this book starts with putting the new system into historical, comparative and institutional contexts (Part I) before highlighting some issues under EU law and the perspective of EU integration (Part II). The institutional, jurisdictional and procedural questions raised by the UPC are then addressed (Part III), as well as the innovation and markets issues (Part IV). The last contributions discuss possible improvements and alternatives to the Unitary Patent Package (Part V).

This paper explores how to address some issues in the design of the European patent with unitary effect. Its intent is not to make a proposition on how to reshape the new patent system from scratch but explore how to fix the existing gaps and shortcomings within the proposed system. In this regard, the paper first highlights the main issues that need to be addressed as a priority, namely those concerning the externalisation of patent law from the EU legal order, its uncertain compatibility with EU law and the risks raised by the Unified Patent Court design with respect to the right to a fair trial. Solutions that would permit, first, to re-integrate the UPCA within the orbit of EU law with the aim of re-establishing the CJEU as last resort jurisdiction for patent matters and, second, re-empower the EU legislator for determining the substantive rules of the Unitary Patent, are then explored.

Over the last few years, Legal Design has grown as a field of research and practice. The potential of design in the legal domain has been investigated and experimented in various sectors such as access to justice, dispute resolution, privacy indicators, policy prototyping, contractual negotiation. Being an interdisciplinary area of study, Legal Design combines different disciplines and methodologies and relies on insights from legal practice. This book intends to contribute to the study and advancement of Legal Design by presenting different voices and perspectives from scholars and practitioners active in this field. The volume brings together critical essays on the nature and methods of Legal Design and illustrations from the practice. The contributions provide the readers with the state of the art of Legal Design and a prospective outline of its future development.

La croissance occupe aujourd’hui une place centrale dans la gouvernance publique. Parce qu’elle soutiendrait la création d’emplois, assurerait le financement de la sécurité sociale, allégerait le fardeau de la dette, favoriserait les investissements, l’augmentation constante du produit intérieur brut serait devenue indispensable à la prospérité collective. Dès son émergence cependant, cet « imaginaire croissanciel » - qui a su séduire à gauche comme à droite - s’est attiré des critiques d’ordre anthropologique (la croissance infinie du pouvoir d’achat ne signe pas l’épanouissement humain), écologique (la quête éperdue de points de croissance se heurte au mur des limites planétaires) et social (cinquante ans d’agenda croissanciel n’ont pas empêché les inégalités de se maintenir). La crise économique qui a éclaté en 2007 et les signes toujours plus tangibles des bouleversements climatiques à venir ont donné à ces critiques une acuité nouvelle. Et le droit dans tout cela ? Nos règles juridiques reflètent-elles l’emprise de l’imaginaire croissanciel ou autorisent-elles d’autres conceptions du progrès humain ? Et les juristes ? Ont-ils les moyens et la légitimité pour traduire dans les règles de droit les aspirations à une prospérité sans croissance ? Ce sont ces questions difficiles que cet ouvrage aborde, couronnant trois années de travaux au sein du Séminaire interdisciplinaire d’études juridiques. Gageons que le lecteur y trouvera une source d’inspiration et un programme de recherche à la hauteur des défis de notre époque.

We contribute to the discussion on the resilience of sharing economy platforms (SEPs) in pandemic times. We distinguish SEPs according to how the pandemic affects their respective supply and demand sides (both sides contract, sides get unbalanced, or both sides expand). Within each category, we discuss how SEPs (both for-profit and prosocial) bear up against the threats and/or exploit the opportunities raised by the pandemic; we also compare SEPs to “pipelines” (integrated firms). Analyzing specific examples through the lens of management science, economics and legal studies, we formulate three conjectures: (1) although SEPs may benefit from lower operating costs in the short run, network effects might accelerate their decline in the long run; (2) yet, network effects also make SEPs better-equipped than pipelines to seize new opportunities emerging in pandemic times; (3) prosocial SEPs are more flexible than profit-oriented SEPs in responding to social needs during difficult times.