Resumen de Of TRIPS and Traps: the interpretative Jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union over Patent Law

Angelos Dimopoulos, Petroula Vantsiouri

• This article argues that, despite the setup of the newly devised European patent system, the CJEU can play a significant role in patent litigation in the European Union because of the interpretative jurisdiction that it has acquired over TRIPS in the post-Lisbon era. Following the judgment in Daiichi Sankyo, it examines first the Court's jurisprudence on the direct effect and interpretation of the substantive patent provisions of the TRIPS Agreement in the pre - and post-Lisbon era, explaining why EU exclusive competence under art.207 TFEU requires the CJEU to interpret the patent provisions of the TRIPS Agreement. Secondly, it looks into the implications of a CJEU interpretative jurisdiction over TRIPS on the development of uniform EU patent rules in light of the establishment of the Unified Patent Court and the EU Patent with Unitary Effect. It concludes that the CJEU can play a key role in safeguarding coherence and consistency in the pplication of the different regimes of patent protection in the European Union.