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ARTICLE · 04 MARCH 2019

German Constitutional Challenge Against UPCA To Be Decided In 2019?

Dehns
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Once again, the German Federal Constitutional Court has listed the "Constitutional Complaint" against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement on the cases to be decided for the coming year.

United KingdomGovernment, Public Sector
Mark Bell
Mark Bell
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Once again, the German Federal Constitutional Court (BVerfG) has listed the "Constitutional Complaint" against German ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) on the cases to be decided for the coming year. Followers of this saga will be aware that the case was on the 2018 list but was not heard.

While it appears likely that the UPCA case will now be heard this year (the judge assigned to the case appears to be close to completing the earlier cases on his list), it is still uncertain whether and when this will lead to the UPC being established.

There are two main factors at play here. The first is the outcome of the German UPCA case itself. Were the BVerfG to dismiss the complaint against the UPCA being unconstitutional, this would allow Germany to ratify the UPCA. However, the UPC may still be prevented from being established by the second factor: Brexit. It seems highly unlikely that the German UPCA case will be decided in time for Germany to

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