No hope for Unified Patent Court?

The German Federal Constitutional Court has upheld a constitutional complaint filed against the country’s Unified Patent Court (UPC) legislation on the basis the required two thirds majority quorum in the German parliament was not achieved. It concluded this week that the Act of Approval was null and void.

The UPC was to be a court common to the contracting member states, enabling inventors to register one unified patent enforceable throughout the UPC jurisdiction. 

However, the UK confirmed in February it would not be seeking involvement in the UPC, despite ratifying the underlying agreement in 2018.

Michael Edenborough QC, barrister at Serle Court, said: ‘The German Constitutional Court has upheld an objection to Germany joining the UPC Agreement.

‘This, coupled with the recent news that the UK will now withdraw from the UPC (because it refuses to be part of any system over which the CJEU has oversight), almost certainly means that the UPC is finished. Without the UK and Germany, who are the largest patent jurisdictions in Europe, the UPC becomes an almost worthless shell of the dream of a pan-European patent court system.

‘The other countries have neither the volume of cases, nor expertise, to maintain a useful system.’