The IPKat has received and is pleased to host the following guest contribution by Katfriend Rafał Sikorski (Faculty of Law, Adam Mickiewicz University), which questions the legality of creating multiple panels within a local division of the Unified Patent Court. Here's what Rafał has to say: "The Unified Patent Court ( UPC ) has now been operating for over three years. It has proved to be a tremendous success. The court remains efficient in adjudication of disputes relating to infringement and validity of traditional European as well unitary patents. Certain trends are now visible in the operations of the UPC. At first instance over 75% of the disputes are decided by the German local divisions based in Duesseldorf, Mannheim, Hamburg and Munich. Apart from the Dutch local division , local divisions in other UPC Contracting States get significantly fewer cases. This is also the case with respect to the only regional division, namely the Baltic division. The distribution of ...