GAT, Solvay, and the Centralization of Patent Litigation in Europe

As business has become global, so have disputes about patents, patent infringement, and patent validity. In many ongoing disputes between patent holders and alleged infringers, parties are engaging in parallel court proceedings in multiple countries to litigate infringements of parallel patents and to contest the validity of patents. Concentrating litigation involving identical inventions and identical or similar conduct into one national or multinational court could result in faster, more efficient, and more consistent enforcement of patents.