The draft European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA), or formally the Draft Agreement on the establishment of a European patent litigation system, was a proposed patent law agreement aimed at creating an "optional protocol to the European Patent Convention (EPC) which would commit its signatory states to an integrated judicial system, including uniform rules of procedure and a common appeal court". It differed from the Unified Patent Court Agreement in that the EPLA negotiations were coordinated from the side of the European Patent Office, rather than from the European Council and Commission and therefore also offered the possibility for non-EU states to participate. The EPLA was a proposed alternative to a set of proposed Community patent regulations. The European Commission regarded the negotiations on the EPLA as unlawful, although in 2006 it had gained a considerable ground among patent practitioners and national patent judges. The EPLA proposal was essentially dropped in 2007 after the Legal Service of European Parliament issued an opinion that the EPLA would prima facie constitute a breach of Article 292 of the EC Treaty and thus the European Community and its members states could not participate. Many of its provisions were subsequently incorporated into the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court, which is currently undergoing ratification. Background Under Article 64(3) of the European Patent Convention, any infringement of a European patent is dealt with under national law (i.e. the law of one of the 38 member states to the European Patent Convention). Additionally, once the 9-month opposition period under has expired, there is no centralised way of challenging the validity of a granted patent, leaving proceedings also there only to national law. Furthermore, Brussels I Regulation "on jurisdiction and the recognition and enforcement of judgments in civil and commercial matters", valid for 26 European Patent Convention members (all European Union members except Denmark) does not according to a 2008 judicial opinion in the UK "fully consider[ed] the problems posed by intellectual property rights". Such disputes are typically based on parallel national rights rather than European-wide rights. As a consequence, parties wishing to litigate a patent often have to litigate as much about where and when disputes should be heard and decided as about the real underlying dispute. History In 1999, a Working Party on Litigation was set up by member states of the European Patent Organisation to propose an optional agreement on the creation of such a