EXCLUSIVE JURISDICTION IN PATENT ENTITLEMENT AND OWNERSHIP DISPUTES UNDER THE RECAST BRUSSELS I REGULATION

difficult to identify. The complexity in this area has been furthered in recent years through the introduction of various public policy exceptions to Rule 3, which Sir Julian Flaux C. in Solo Capital Partners suggested should be extended to major international fraud (at [146]). As a result of these exceptions, the rule does not apply in some instances where any plausible rationale for it would suggest it should. All this complexity suggests that, if there is some simpler mechanism by which the same outcomes can be achieved, there may be good reasons to abandon Rule 3. The doctrine of forum non conveniens might be that simpler mechanism. Where a claim is brought before an English court, the court can decline to exercise its jurisdiction where a different forum is clearly and distinctly more appropriate for the trial of the dispute. The objection to the availability of the English forum in most cases in which reliance on Rule 3 has been successful is that such claims should properly be brought in the courts of the countries the law of which the claimant is trying to enforce. Channelling this reasoning through forum non conveniens would help rationalise the haphazard applicability of Rule 3.