🇪🇺🇮🇹 PMAC and the Court of Milan Sign First Cooperation Protocol with a National Court in Europe

| Press Release |

MFSD welcomes an important development in European intellectual property dispute resolution, supported by its Co-founder and Scientific Director, Pierfrancesco C. Fasano.

Milan, 16 October 2026 — The Patent Mediation and Arbitration Centre (PMAC) of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the Court of Milan’s Specialised Business Division have signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), establishing the PMAC’s first formal cooperation framework with a national court in Europe.

The MoU was signed remotely by Aleš Zalar, Director of the PMAC, and Fabio Roia, President of the Court of Milan. It marks a significant step towards closer cooperation between national courts and the PMAC in promoting effective and accessible dispute resolution in patent and other intellectual property matters.

Pierfrancesco C. Fasano, Co-founder and Scientific Director of MFSD, alongside with Cristiano Bacchini, the other Italian Expert Commitee member, helped to facilitating and contributed to bringing the MoU to signature in his capacity as a member of the PMAC Expert Committee. Both attended the signing ceremony along with Silvia Giani, President of Court of Milan’s Specialised Business Division, Simona Marzetti, Unified Patent Court’s Administrative Commitee member and Director of International Affairs at Italian Ministry of Enterprises and Made in Italy (MIMIT) and Roberta Nocella at Italian Ministry of Justice.

The cooperation framework has five principal objectives:

● Awareness: promoting understanding of alternative dispute resolution (ADR) procedures and their practical benefits.

● Access to information: facilitating access to neutral information about PMAC-administered services, including information sessions, mediation, arbitration and expert determination.

● Outreach: undertaking activities to encourage informed consideration of ADR in appropriate disputes.

● Training: developing professional knowledge and practical capabilities in ADR.

● Institutional exchange: sharing information and best practices to support effective cooperation between the PMAC and national courts.

The initiative recognises the complementary roles of judicial proceedings and ADR. Patent disputes frequently involve interconnected technical, contractual and commercial questions, including licensing arrangements, ownership, employee-inventor compensation and trade secrets. Access to specialised and flexible procedures can help parties address these issues within a coordinated dispute resolution strategy, including where matters fall outside the UPC’s jurisdiction.

For lawyers and patent attorneys, the MoU supports greater awareness of the procedural options available to their clients. For businesses and inventors, it promotes access to processes capable of accommodating technical complexity, commercial priorities and continuing business relationships.

MFSD welcomes this development as a practical contribution to a more accessible and coordinated European justice framework, in which specialist adjudication and consensual dispute resolution reinforce the effective protection of intellectual property and innovation. This is a sector in which MFSD has been one of the pioneers in Europe since 2001.

Official Press Release: https://www.pmac-upc.org/en/news/pmac-signed-first-memorandum-understanding-national-court-europe

Photo Credit: Pierfrancesco C. Fasano