Where the Court of Justice is seised of a case in which the same issue of interpretation is raised, or where the Court First Instance is seised of a case in which the validity of the same Community patent is called in question, the Community Patent Court may, after hearing the parties, stay proceedings before it until such time as the Court of Justice or the Court of First Instance shall have delivered judgment.

The President of the Court of Justice or, where appropriate, the President of the Court of First Instance shall, acting by common accord with the President of the Community Patent Court, determine the conditions under which officials and other servants attached to the Court of Justice shall render their services to the Community Patent Court to enable it to function.

(9) In order to take account of the special nature of private-party Community patent litigation and to ensure a uniform procedure at both instances, amendments to the procedural rules contained in the Protocol on the Statute of the Court of Justice are necessary, both for the procedure at first instance before the Community Patent Court and on appeal before the Court of First Instance.

Unlike in Article 61 of the Statute, which addresses the appeal against decisions of the Court of First Instance to the Court of Justice on points of law stating that the Court of Justice may give final judgment where the state of proceedings so permits or otherwise refer the case back to the Court of First Instance, the present Article states the rule that the Court of First Instance in patent appeal proceedings shall decide the case.

The EC Treaty would then also provide that this court, like the Court of First Instance (Articles 225 and 243 to 245 of the EC Treaty), would adopt its own rules of procedure and order provisional measures, and that its judgments would be enforceable in the Member States in the same way as decisions of the Court of Justice.

Whereas under Council Decision 88/591/ECSC, EEC, Euratom of 24 October 1988 establishing a Court of First Instance of the European Communities (4), as amended by Decision 93/350/Euratom, ECSC, EEC of 8 June 1993 (5), that Court shall exercise at the first instance the jurisdiction conferred on the Court of Justice by the Treaties establishing the Communities - with particular regard to appeals lodged under the second subparagraph of Article 173 of the EC Treaty - and by the acts adopted in implementation thereof, save as otherwise provided in an act setting up a body governed by Community law; whereas the jurisdiction which this Regulat ...[+++]ion confers on the Court of Justice to cancel and reform decisions of the appeal courts shall accordingly be exercised at the first instance by the Court in accordance with the above Decision;