The future of the European Unified Patent Court (UPC) appears to look a bit clearer following recent ratification activities. On 16 January 2017, the Preparatory Committee for the UPC announced on its website that it is working under the assumption that the UPC can become operational in December 2017. However, the Committee stated that this timeline is conditional on a number of factors, with the most important being “the necessary ratifications of the [UPC Agreement] and accession to the Protocol on Provisional Application”. So far, twelve EU Member States have ratified the UPC Agreement, including France (14 March 2014) and Italy (10 February 2017).
The three countries with the highest number of patent applications in Europe (France, Germany and the UK) are mandatory ratifying countries of the UPC Agreement.
On 10 March 2017, the German Parliament, Bundestag, approved ratification of the UPC Agreement and related amendments to the German Patent Act. As a next step in the legislative process, the German Federal Council, Bundesrat, will need to approve the draft legislation. After approval by the Bundesrat, the resulting laws would then need to be signed by the newly elected Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier. The laws would take effect on the day following promulgation in the German Federal Law Gazette.
On 28 November 2016, the UK government issued a press release that, despite the UK’s planned leave from the EU, commonly known as “Brexit,” it still plans to ratify the UPC Agreement over the coming months. However, it is not clear how the ratification of the UPC agreement will play out with the UK’s heralded rejection of the supremacy of EU law and the jurisdiction of the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU). The UK government’s White Paper on exiting the EU specifies that “[the UK] will bring an end to the jurisdiction of the CJEU in the UK.”
This article was originally published on AllAboutIP – Mayer Brown’s blog on relevant developments in the fields of intellectual property and unfair competition law. For intellectual property-themed videos, Mayer Brown has launched a dedicated channel available here.