LISBON LOCAL DIVISION Law and Practice Contributed by: Joana Piriquito Santos, Beatriz Lima and Sara Nazaré, NLP
1. General Information 1.1 Basic Information
candidates in 2016 and an internship in 2017 at the Boards of Appeal provided by the EPO. 1.3 Specific Procedural Issues There are no specific procedural issues applying to the Lisbon Local Division of the UPC. The Lis - bon Local Division operates according to same procedural rules applicable to other local divi - sions ‒ primarily, the Unitary Patent Court Agree - ment (UPCA), the Rules of Procedure (RoP), and the EU Regulation 2020/1784 concerning the service of documents. It is also worth noting, however, that Portugal operates on Greenwich Mean Time (GMT) and that the organisational rules of the Lisbon Local Division regarding oral hearings are available online at the UPC website. 1.4 Regional Division Competence There is no information available for this juris - diction. 1.5 Central Division Competence There is no information available for this juris - diction. 1.6 Court of Appeal: Purpose and Procedure There is no information available for this juris - diction. 2. Statistical Information 2.1 Types of Actions As of 31 May 2025, the Lisbon Local Division has received a total of: • one infringement action/claim for damages; • two applications for preliminary injunctions (and other provisional measures);
Portugal has a local division of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) in Lisbon. Further details of its loca - tion, contact details, and opening hours can be found on the UPC website. The Mediation and Arbitration Centre is also located at the same premises. Official holidays in Portugal currently include 1 January, Good Friday, Easter, 25 April, 1 May, 10 June, Corpus Christi, 15 August, 5 Octo - ber, 1 November, 1 December, 8 December, 25 December. It is not uncommon for the Portu - guese government to announce long weekends. 1.2 UPC Judges The Lisbon Local Division of the UPC was assigned a chairperson, Rute Lopes, who cur - rently presides over the local division. She obtained her law degree in 1994 and has been a judge since 1997. From 2009 to 2014, Rute Lopes was a judge of the Commercial Court with jurisdiction over IP cases, before becoming head of the Court of North Lisbon from 2014 to 2020. From 2020 to 2022, Rute Lopes was a judge of the IP Court (a specialised first-instance court) with national jurisdiction over IP matters. During this period, she heard patent cases (particularly in the con - text of the special regime under Law 62/2011 of 12 December). Since September 2022, Rute Lopes has been a judge at the Lisbon Court of Appeal (second instance), including in the IP and competition division. She also attended seminars and train - ing at the European Patent Office (EPO) and the European Union Intellectual Property Office (EUIPO), including the training course for UPC
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