European Patent Litigation Certificate (EPLC) courses
According to the website of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), parties can be represented before the UPC either by lawyers (Article 48(1) UPCA) or by European Patent Attorneys (EPA) who are entitled to act as professional representatives before the European Patent Office (EPO) and who have appropriate qualifications such as a European Patent Litigation Certificate (EPLC) (Article 48(2) UPCA).
Now that the transitional period has already ended, qualified EPAs can select from five accredited courses:
The Center for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) for the University Diploma “Patent Litigation in Europe”;
The Fernuniversität in Hagen for the education programme "Zertifikat zur Führung Europäischer Patentstreitverfahren”;
The Academy of European Law (ERA) and the Maastricht University Faculty of Law (UM) for the “Joint EPLC training course”;
The Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf for “The Düsseldorf Representation Preparation EPLC-Course”;
The University Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, for the course “POLIMI European Patent Litigiation Certificate”.
In this article, you can find a summary of these courses, including key details, advantages and some personal insights. Since I have not attended any of these courses (yet), I asked other attorneys to help me with this post. Thank you very much Gabriele Honecker, Ignacio Lobato Holtmann, Riccardo Bellingacci and Michael Schagginger for contributing and for supporting other young EPAs by sharing your experience! 💛
Good news: Gabriele, Ignacio, Riccardo and Michael will be attending the Meetup in Munich in June, so you will also be able to ask them about these courses in person. Maybe they will even share a few things we can't really put into writing. 😉
If you would like to join the Meetup on 28 June, please register here. 🍻
Let’s dive in! (I’m using the same order as the UPC website.)
1. The Center for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) for the University Diploma “Patent Litigation in Europe” by Ignacio Lobato Holtmann
Key facts:
Course duration: October to June (≈ 9 months)
Sessions:
Mandatory in‑person sessions in Strasbourg (dates of the current course):
11‑12 Oct 2024 (Module 1)
6‑7 Jun 2025 (Module 9: mock trial + individual oral exam)
Hybrid modules: Modules 2, 4‑8 are taught one Friday/Saturday per month; you can attend on‑site or online at will. Module 3 (6‑7 Dec 2024) is online‑only. Recordings and slides are posted after each block.
Online learning cadence: No extra mid‑week classes; the live stream of each module is the class, and you may replay it any time.
Exams: (dates of the current course)
Written multiple‑choice exam online – 22 Mar 2025
Group mock‑trial pleadings on 6‑7 Jun 2025 (with written submissions prepared beforehand)
Individual oral exam on 6‑7 Jun 2025 (new from the 2024‑25 cohort)
Language: English
Registration for the 2025-2026 academic year opens on May 5.
My personal impressions:
I chose CEIPI because it is one of the few UPC-accredited programmes that can be followed almost entirely online. Except for the kick-off weekend and the final mock trial, every teaching block is streamed live and recorded, so I could slot the classes around my German patent-attorney training and catch up in the evenings. The Friday/Saturday schedule—roughly one long weekend per month—offered exactly the flexibility I needed.
The standout feature is the calibre of the speakers. UPC judges, seasoned litigators and in-house counsel share the podium; Trevor Cook (Bird & Bird) and Steve Faraji (Audi) were especially clear and practice-oriented lecturers of the course. Because the nine blocks are spread over eight months, the weekly workload stays light: beyond reading the slide decks, there are no interim assignments.
The course does have rough edges. Each lecturer brings a personal slide deck, so topics sometimes overlap or leave gaps, and practical work is limited to the two-day mock trial. Exam guidance is also sparse. This year’s written multiple-choice test (22 March) was tougher than participants thought, and CEIPI has added this year—for the first time—a separate individual oral exam (in addition to the mock trial oral exam) without mentioning it beforehand in the syllabus of the course. When asked about the contents of the individual oral exam, the organisers pointed out that the lecturers are busy practitioners, which is understandable but leaves candidates guessing about what to revise.
That said, the historic pass rate is 100 % and the workload remains manageable: a focused weekend covered the written paper, and the mock trial is prepared in a four-person team. Still, a harmonised slide set, sample questions and perhaps some individual tutoring would be improvements which could be taken into account in future courses.
Author: Ignacio Lobato Holtmann
2. The Fernuniversität in Hagen for the education programme "Zertifikat zur Führung Europäischer Patentstreitverfahren” by Michael Schagginger
Webpage: https://www.fernuni-hagen.de/wpradt/aktuelles/eplcinfo.shtml
Key facts:
Course duration: September to April (8 months)
In-person sessions at the Technical University of Munich:
3,5 days in September
2,5 days in November
3,5 days in March (including Mock trial and written exam)
The in-person sessions start on the first day always after lunch time and end on the last day around lunch time.
Online training:
Central online platform (Moodle), providing all information and materials
Live lectures per Zoom are mostly held during the first months from September until early December, approx. once per week on a weekday evening (duration between 1,5 and 2,5 hours)
Complementary reading material for self-study
Complementary (non-mandatory) tutoring sessions for exam preparation from December until February (also available as video-recording afterwards)
Type of exam in March/April:
Group mock trials, including preparation of written submissions (attendance required; written submissions are however not part of the exam),
Written exam (4 hours), and
Group oral exam (1 hour; groups of three; choice between in-person oral exam in Munich or online oral exam via Zoom).
Language: German
My personal impressions:
Why I chose the course:
As I am regularly involved in proceedings before the UPC, due to my exclusive work in patent litigation, and as I am living in Munich, I mainly chose this course due to its flexibility. For example, the majority of lectures are held online during the first few months of the course. The in-person sessions were comparatively “short” and held in Munich, which simplified planning.
General recommendation:
Please note that this course is (with the exception to a few lectures) entirely held in German. Thus, it is particularly suited for people from the DACH region and there is a discount for German patent attorneys.
Advantages:
As mentioned above, this course provides a lot of flexibility compared to other courses: The majority of lectures are held online during the first three and a half months. The in-person sessions are comparatively short. They are held in the center of Munich at the Technical University and they are scheduled to allow same-day travel.
Furthermore, non-mandatory tutoring sessions are offered for exam preparation and repetition of important topics.
The lectures and material cover a wide range of topics, while the exam was particularly focused on the UPC Agreement and the UPC Rules of Procedure. In my opinion, the exams were very fair and there was more than enough time (unlike some European qualifying exam I know). The results were also announced shortly after the respective exams (again: unlike some European qualifying exam I know).
One more point regarding the mock trials: While materials were provided beforehand, the written submissions were prepared in groups during the in-person session and did not have to be prepared at home/during free-time.
Disadvantages:
The main focus of the mock trials was substantive issues (rather than procedural issues), which in my opinion didn’t make much sense, since a) the case-law of the UPC on substantive issues is still rapidly developing, and b) most attendants were not familiar with UPC proceedings and thus might have benefitted more from the discussion of procedural hurdles/specifics.
Finally, the course covers a wide range of topics in line with R. 3 of the Rules on the EPLC. R. 3 defines the topics that should be covered by the EPLC – but it does not specify how much time should be spent on each topic. At least in my humble opinion, the focus on the UPC Rules of Procedure (and potentially highly relevant case-law in the future) could be further increased for this course - while at the same time decreasing time spent on e.g. German, UK, French and Italian patent proceedings - which would benefit all attendants.
Author: Michael Schagginger
3. The Academy of European Law (ERA) and the Maastricht University Faculty of Law (UM) for the “Joint EPLC training course” by Gabriele Honecker
Webpage: https://patentlitigationcertificate.eu/
Key facts:
Course duration: September to May (approx. 8 months)
In-person sessions in Trier:
2 days at the End of September
1 week in February
1 week in May
Start on the first day always in the morning, end on the last day around lunch time/early afternoon
Online training:
Live lectures twice per month for 2h on a weekday evening (e.g., Wednesdays)
Complementary video-recorded lectures and reading material for self-study
Type of exam in May:
Group mock trials with previously prepared written submissions, plus
Individual oral exam.
Language: English
My personal impressions:
Why I chose the course:
The “grandparent” rule would have applied to me based on my training as German patent attorney in addition to being European patent attorney (EPA). But since I had very little experience with court proceedings – differently from some people who did internships at civil courts dealing with patent infringement, or more ample experience at the German patent court at the end of the German training in non-pandemic years – I decided to take a course with focus on mock trials. Additionally, Maastricht/Trier was actually the first (and at inscription time only) course to be accredited for the EPLC. Another member of the EQE Telegram group recommended it to me, and we met in person for the first time in Trier!
Advantages:
A large part of my daily file work is in English, and I also expect that UPC proceedings will be more and more in English. This course was perfect in the sense that everything was in English, and most speakers were either native British/Irish English speakers or spoke English excellently.
Additionally, the mock trials were even more numerous and intensive than anticipated. And by restricting to exactly 30 participants, we had the chance to interact, and everyone could ask questions during the training sessions. The organizers were actually a bit surprised about how interactive we were. ☺ There were a few other German participants, but most came from across Europe, from Portugal in the far south-west to the Baltic states in the far north-east. Besides EPAs in private practice and in-house (that was before the discussion if and under which conditions in-house EPAs may act as UPC representatives), we also had an IP asset manager from a university and an EPO examiner in the group.
The diversity of nationalities and roles provided interesting insights, such as into differences in national court proceedings. In the end, I felt very lucky that formalities at the UPC seem to be modeled very much according to German court proceedings.
Last but not least, Trier is a beautiful old town in a wine growing region, and the organizers made sure that we noticed!
Disadvantages:
Until the end of January, the course seemed pretty chill. And then suddenly preparing the first round of Mock trials before arriving for the second in-person week in Trier hit. We had to get organized in groups of 3 to 4 people as “plaintiff” or “defendant” for one case, agree on a written submission and, in the in-person week, agree on how to present and defend the case such that everyone in the group gets to speak. Coordinating time scales outside of the in-person week was sometimes a bit difficult, also because everyone got multiple cases, each with different group members.
In terms of travel plans, I would say that the lengthy train ride home each time was pretty bad. Trier is located about 35km from Luxembourg – thus, if you can, try to get a flight there – and seemingly OK accessible by train from the north (Cologne and Düsseldorf), but a nightmare from the east (Stuttgart and Munich) since there is only one train route directly at a river, which can be totally out of service just because of a single broken switch or flooding of the river due to rain.
General recommendation:
Independently of which EPLC course you choose, make sure to get the contact data of your peers early on. E.g., I collected the e-mails from everyone and then created a chat group so that everyone could easily interact with each other. That was very handy in cases when there were connection problems during the online sessions, and also for coordinating the Mock trial preparations.
Author: Gabriele Honecker
4. The Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf for “The Düsseldorf Representation Preparation EPLC-Course”
This one is sadly missing. Do you know anyone who attended this course and would be willing to share more about it?
5. The University Politecnico di Milano, Department of Energy, for the course “POLIMI European Patent Litigiation Certificate” by Riccardo Bellingacci
Website: https://www.corsopatents.energia.polimi.it/
Key facts:
Course duration:
My course was from September to February, however the new course for 2025 runs from November 2024 to May 2025.
Online lectures:
Every week on Tuesday, between 9:30–12:45 and 14:15–17:30 with some exceptions (all conducted in English)
Material was sent shortly before each lecture.
Recordings were made available quickly after lectures.
In-person event:
We had a three-day event in Milan together with the final exam. It appears to have been prolonged to four days in 2025.
Exam:
We had a multiple-choice section and an open question with a case study. The new layout for the exam according to the website appears to be:
Written test with multiple-choice questions.
Case study plus oral exam.
Language: English
My personal impressions:
Why I chose the course:
I like the very vast number of different lecturers from different nationalities (on the website a list of lecturers can be seen) and the fact that some of these lecturers were not patent attorneys but e.g. attorneys at law, thereby giving a different view on the matter.
Furthermore, there were lectures on UK, DE, and French litigation, which although not strictly related to the UPC as such, were interesting to gain a general overview of the national litigation practice in these important countries.
Also, lectures on “basic knowledge of private law, including contract law, company law and tort law in both common and continental law and EU law” are topics which might not be strictly necessary for the UPC but having some knowledge is of advantage when discussing strategy with clients.
Last but not least, of course, being Italian but living in Germany, every chance to go to Italy and have wonderful food is good.
The course as such
The online lectures on Tuesday were tough and unfortunately, my day-to-day work did not allow me to follow all lectures live. The recordings, however, and in particular the slides, were good to understand the different topic.
The material may seem a bit overwhelming; however, some of the topics were more for information purposes than for exam preparation. I had a feeling the organisers made it clear what was more important and what was less important.
The in-person part in Milan was fun, and the interactive mocks were very interesting. We were divided into three groups (plaintiffs, defendants, and judges), had time to prepare our attacks, defences, or cases, and had time to discuss the matter. Having one group act as judges was a very interesting twist, which I thought was a great idea.
The mock hearing was challenging, and each group had to choose two or three lead speakers for the session. The others in the group were assisting, giving hints (and could, of course, contribute comments if they wanted), and especially listening to the opposing side to begin preparing arguments for the second and third round of discussion.
This structure worked well: those who wanted to focus more on the mock itself could volunteer to speak (as I did), while those more interested in the legal analysis didn’t have to worry about presenting. Overall, the atmosphere was relaxed, with occasional off-script interventions by the lecturers. Since the mock was not part of the exam, there was room to experiment and even stretch some arguments—which, in my opinion, may sometime reflect real-life practice more accurately than in a strict examination environment.
Of course, the downside was that not requiring everyone to present didn’t help some participants step out of their comfort zone, nor did it provide first-hand experience in presenting during an oral hearing for those candidates.
The attendees were of many different nationalities with a certain predominance of Italians and of participants from the Nordic countries, e.g. Denmark and Sweden.
The Exam
As mentioned above, my exam appeared to be a bit different from how it is right now, so the following may hold only for my exam:
Having done the first course, there was no case law to discuss and the exam questions were based on procedural topics. The multiple-choice questions were often related to a small case study, e.g., Company A has a Patent B in countries C and D — in which language, or in what courts can it file what suit, and similar.
The open question related to a specific action, e.g., non-infringement, nullity or similar action in which the case had to be analyzed and the potential steps discussed.
Overall, the exam was doable and not too long (no comparison with respect to the EQE / Paper D2 of the EQE).
Summary:
Overall, a very interesting course which was well organized. The time in Milan was also very good to connect with other patent attorneys, with whom I’m still in contact.
Author: Riccardo Bellingacci
We hope you found these summaries helpful. Thank you Gabriele, Ignacio, Michael and Riccardo for your time and contribution!
See you at the Meetup in Munich soon!