not be entitled on their own to conclude that Agreement. Earlier, on 30 January 2007, Sir Nicholas Pumfrey, a British judge supporting the EPLA, is reported to have told the audience at a seminar in London that it appeared that the EPLA had "finally died". "It is a minor but quite important disaster. We thought we had done it", he added. Thus, it became apparent in 2006-2007 that the countries which are members of the European Union did not have the competence to institute such a system, as long as it fell completely outside the European Union's legal framework. Later, in 2011, the Court of Justice of the EU eventually issued its Opinion 1/09 that the envisaged court system was not compatible with EU law. Content The 2003 draft agreement provided the creation of a "European Patent Judiciary" (EPJ), comprising: a "European Patent Court" competent to decide on infringement relating to patents of EPO member states and including a "European Patent Court of Appeal"; and an "Administrative Committee". The EPJ would have made current national patent courts obsolete. However, the EPJ could have set up regional chambers. Name The agreement was called "European Patent Litigation Protocol" (EPLP) before being renamed "European Patent Litigation Agreement" (EPLA) for reasons of international law. See also European patent law Community patent London Agreement Brussels Regime, i.e. Brussels Convention, the Lugano Convention, and the Brussels I Regulation (Council Reg (EC) 44/2001) Directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (proposed) Unified Patent Court References External links European Patent Office web site (including additional links) EPLA summary (archived version from the EPO web site) Mandate of the working party on litigation (1999) (as published in the EPO Official Journal) Declaration of the Working Party on Litigation (2003) (archived version from the EPO web site), here (archived version from the UKIPO web site) or here (archived version from the Swiss Patent Office web site) Official draft agreement (2004) (archived version from the EPO web site) or here (archived version from the Swiss Patent Office web site) Official draft statute of the European Patent Court (2004)(archived version from the EPO web site) or here (archived version from the Swiss Patent Office web site) European Patent Lawyers Association (EPLAW) web site First Venice Resolution (November 2005) Second Venice Resolution (November 2006) European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA)