Terms and Conditions
Using the Case Management System (CMS)
You agree to use the CMS only for lawful purposes and in a manner that does not infringe the rights of, or restrict or inhibit the use of this site by any third party.
By using the CMS, you accept these Terms and Conditions and agree to abide by them.
Scope of application, modifications
These Terms and Conditions are applicable to the access to and use of any part of the UPC’s CMS, including text, images, sound and software made available on the CMS and any of its functionalities.
These Terms and Conditions may be superseded by other Terms and Conditions applicable to individual functionalities or parts of the CMS, irrespective of whether or not these Terms and Conditions expressly refer to such other Terms and Conditions. The Unified Patent Court (UPC) reserves the right to amend these Terms and Conditions. Amendments will be notified in advance via the Website of the Court. They will take effect on the date on which they are posted. The UPC may decide not to notify in advance minor amendments, which do not impact the use of the CMS. Users are entitled to object to changes within two weeks of posting. Objections to changes of the Terms and Conditions may result in a restriction or a denial of the user’s access to the CMS or any part thereof. Continued use of the CMS constitutes acceptance of the changes concerned.
If any provision of these Terms and Conditions is for any reason held to be invalid, illegal or otherwise unenforceable, such unenforceability does not affect any other provision; the Terms and Conditions are then to be construed as if they had never contained the provision(s) in question and are to be interpreted, in so far as possible, in such a way as to maintain their original intent.
Purpose of the CMS, use
The general purpose of the CMS is to provide a central repository for the Unified Patent Court, allowing the Court to work in the digital age and to grant access to documents held by the UPC in accordance with applicable legal provisions.
In case of misuse or attempted misuse of the CMS and subject to any legal provision governing access to documents held by the UPC in electronic form, the UPC reserves the right to modify, limit or discontinue – in full or in part and without prior notice – the functionalities of the CMS, to restrict access to the CMS and to deny any user’s access to the CMS or any part thereof.
User obligations
Users of the CMS must refrain from violating or attempting to violate the UPC’s network security and in particular, from uploading or attaching virus-containing or corrupted files or any software or programs that might damage the operation of another user’s computer. Users must furthermore refrain from restricting, or attempting to restrict in any way, access to or use of the CMS or any Services by other users (for example by generating, whether manually or in an automated fashion, unusually high numbers of functionalities accesses, such as API requests or logins).
The functionalities available on this CMS platform require a prior registration. Users must provide correct and complete information when registering and they need to update it if necessary. They must not misuse any access authorization granted to them (for example by transferring data to unauthorized third persons). By registering, users agree to being contacted by the UPC by whatever means appropriate.
Registered users are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of their account and password (including smart card and specific password) to prevent unauthorised access to that account. Users must take all necessary steps to keep their password secure.
In the event of any violation of the above user obligations, the UPC is entitled to revoke the user’s access rights and restrict or deny the user’s access to the CMS or any part thereof accordingly without prior notice.
Content
Each user bears responsibility for the completeness of the data that is submitted via the CMS. As such, the UPC cannot guarantee that the Information as displayed on the CMS is always comprehensive, complete, accurate and up-to-date. Consequently, the UPC accepts no responsibility for any loss or damage that may arise from reliance on the Information.
Copyright, use of content
All Information available on the CMS may be protected by copyright and owned or controlled by the UPC or the party credited as its provider or author.
CMS Update
The UPC will have a defined release sequence for CMS updates- any release will be communicated in advance to users via a news to be published on the UPC Website. Minor updates, which do not impact the functionalities of the CMS, may be done without prior notice.
Technical errors and malfunctions, availability
The UPC aims at minimizing technical errors and malfunctions. However, some data or other parts of the information may have been created or structured in files or formats that are not error-free. The UPC cannot guarantee that the underlying files and the formats used are error-free and will not cause the user’s systems to malfunction.
The UPC cannot guarantee that the CMS and its functionalities will always be available. Whilst the UPC is committed to ensuring that the availability of the CMS will be essentially uninterrupted and that transmissions will be error-free, this cannot be guaranteed. Access to the CMS may also occasionally be suspended, restricted or impeded to permit repairs, maintenance or the introduction of new functionalities.
The UPC accepts no responsibility with regard to such problems including, but not limited to, failure of performance, computer virus, communication line failure, alteration of content, encountered as a result of using the site or any linked external sites.
Security
The UPC offers data security by means of a strong authentication mechanism. It combines something that you have (the device itself) with something that you know (the PIN to unlock it). It enables two-factor authentication, meaning that it adds an extra security layer to your online operations. Given the way strong authentication is built, it offers strong protection to the cryptographic keys and other information stored on the embedded micro-chip.
However, the UPC cannot guarantee that data transmitted is absolutely secure at all times from attack by third parties, nor can it guarantee the absolute security of the data transmission process.
Data Protection
When the CMS is accessed, certain information about users, such as internet protocol (IP) addresses, navigation through the site, software used and time spent, may be stored by the UPC or on its behalf. This information may be used for CMS traffic analysis only, and not to identify users. No attempt will be made to monitor systematically individual users of IP addresses, or the actions that they perform.
All data provided by the user (such as names, addresses, account information, etc.) will be treated as confidential, stored and processed only for the purpose for which it was collected and made available only to the unit responsible for dealing with it. In particular, personal data will not be passed on to third parties or published or made available for general access without the user’s agreement or unless necessary to comply with a request by or for the conclusion or fulfilment of a contract with that user, or unless the UPC is obliged to make such data available to public authorities or due to obligations under the UPC’s Agreement and its Rules of Procedure.
Virus protection
We make every effort to check and test material at all stages of production, however you must take your own precautions to ensure that the process which you employ for accessing this CMS platform via internet does not expose you to the risk of viruses, malicious computer code or other forms of interference which may damage the CMS or your own computer system.
We cannot accept any responsibility for any loss, disruption or damage to your data or your computer system which may occur whilst using material derived from the CMS platform.
Viruses, hacking and other offences
You must not misuse the CMS by knowingly or with gross negligence introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorized access to the CMS, or any computer or database connected to the UPC’s Case Management System. You must not attack the CMS via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of-service attack.
Governing law
These Terms and Conditions shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Grand Duchy of Luxembourg. If a dispute arises out of or in connection with these Terms and Conditions, the parties shall undertake in good faith to use all reasonable endeavours to settle the dispute by negotiation. Should this fail, any such dispute shall be finally settled by binding arbitration with one single arbitrator in accordance with the provisions of the Luxembourg New Code of Civil Procedure. The venue for arbitration shall be the city of Luxembourg. Notwithstanding the aforementioned, if the UPC waives its immunity from national jurisdiction, the courts of Luxembourg shall have jurisdiction for any such dispute.
General
The UPC accepts no liability for any failure to comply with these Terms and Conditions where such failure is due to circumstances beyond the Court’s reasonable control.
If any of these Terms and Conditions are held to be invalid, unenforceable or illegal for any reason, the remaining Terms and Conditions shall nevertheless remain in force.
Data protection
The Guidelines for the protection of personal data of the Unified Patent Court (“the Guidelines”) control how your personal information is used by the UPC.
Processing of data will be done under the Principles and Lawfulness of Processing (Article 4 of the Guidelines), according to which:
(1) Processing of personal data shall be done according to the principles in accordance with Article 5 et seqq. EU-GDPR having due regard to Article 9 paragraph 2 lit.f EU-GDPR.
(2) Processing of personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, or trade union membership, and the processing of genetic data, biometric data for the purpose of uniquely identifying a natural person, data concerning health or data concerning a natural person's sex life or sexual orientation shall not be done except if one of the conditions apply that are listed in Article 9 paragraph 2 EU-GDPR.
Please contact the UPC’s Data Protection Officer if you have any further questions-
The Registrar of the Unified Patent Court
Unified Patent Court
1, Rue du Fort Thüngen
L-1499 - Luxemburg
e-mail: contact@unifiedpatentcourt.org