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The UK Parliament is now on its summer recess until September which seems like a good time for a brief update on some unitary patent related bits and bobs from the last couple of weeks.
Brexit
Starting with the dreaded B-word, the Unified Patent Court made it into a Brexit related press conference with Michel Barnier recently (see ScienceBusiness.net report here and the video of the actual press conference here) where the possibility of moving the London part of the central division of the UPC was raised.
For those that aren’t aware, it’s worth pointing out that Michel Barnier is very familiar with the unitary patent system from his position as European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services (see, for example, this speech from 2012).
As recently as the beginning of last year, Barnier was tweeting about the UK’s progress in ratifying the UPC Agreement.
Just a few months before the above tweet the will of the UK people was expressed resulting in Michel Barnier taking up his current position as the European Commission’s chief negotiator with the United Kingdom over leaving the European Union.
Look out for further discussion of the Unified Patent Court as the Brexit negotiations rumble on.
UPC bumped from UK Parliament Schedule
A UPC related Order was scheduled in the Commons diary for 14 July before being bumped at the last minute. Some commentators online read this as “bad” news for the UPC but it seems the Order was moved only to make way for an urgent statement on the HS2 rail project. The UK is expected to push on with its ratification process in the autumn.
German Constitutional Court Challenge
As previously noted on IPcopy, the ratification of the UPC Agreement in Germany has paused due to a challenge in the German Constitutional Court. Not many details are known of this challenge but The Register ran a story this week suggesting that the issue may relate to recent changes to the EPO Boards of Appeal…. see here for the full article. IPcopy will be filing that article away in its “Wild Rumour” drawer….
It’s also noted that a second rumour relating to the pause in the German ratification process is that there weren’t enough people present when the ratification bill was voted on.
IPcopy will keep on the lookout for some solid news on this issue.
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