Unified Patent Court suffers major setback

The Unified Patent Court (UPC) suffered a serious setback this morning. The German Constitutional Court declared the law implementing Germany’s ratification of the agreement on the UPC as null and void. The fact is the law needed to be voted by 2/3 of the Members of the German Parliament and, although it was adopted unanimously, less than 1/3 of parliamentarians were in parliament.

The law was thus declared null by the court, which did not even consider the arguments of unconstitutionality raised in the complaint brought by a German lawyer claiming the unconstitutionality of the UPC agreement.

Consequently, the German Parliament will have to pass the law again.

In practice, this new deadlock will delay further the ratification process of the Agreement by Germany (which would be the last step towards its entry into force), along with the latest news coming from the United Kingdom that it is considering the definitive withdrawal from the same Agreement on the UPC, it is believed that this new scenario probably could be the end of the Unified Patent Court.

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