German Constitutional Court Rules Against The UPC

The German Constitutional Court issued its long-awaiting decision regarding the compatibility of the German law passed to allow Germany to participate in the Unified Patent Court (UPC) and the associated unitary patent, holding that the German law had not been passed with the necessary majority and was therefore void. New German legislation will need to be passed in order for the UPC project to proceed. This, coupled with the changes that will be needed to deal with Brexit, is likely to take years. It is therefore a major set-back for those businesses and IP professionals who were hoping that the UPC and unitary patent would usher in a new era of IP harmonisation across Europe.

The Unified Patent Court Agreement was concluded in February 2013, after years of negotiations. The basic idea was that holders of European Patents would, once the relevant patent application proceeded to grant, be able to elect for the granted patent to have unitary effect in the territories