There is no longer any doubt: the United Kingdom announced at the Competitiveness Council on Monday 28 November that it was moving towards rapid ratification of the inter-governmental agreement on the unified patent court
The announcement was welcomed by Internal Market and Industry Commissioner Elzbieta Bienkowska and Slovak Economy Minister Peter Ziga at the press conference. “This is excellent news for SMEs and larger companies”, said the commissioner, adding that it brought an end to 40 years of laborious negotiations.
To date, 11 member states have ratified the agreement (Austria, France, Sweden, Belgium, Denmark, Malta, Luxembourg, Portugal, Finland, Bulgaria and Netherlands). Germany has announced that it will ratify the agreement at the start of 2017. In 2013, the agreement was signed by all member states with the exceptions of Spain, Poland and Croatia.
The UK position had become very uncertain following the referendum vote to leave the EU (see EUROPE 11670). Now a decision will have to be taken on what is to happen to the court devoted to disputes in chemicals and metallurgy which was supposed to be located in the United Kingdom (see EUROPE 11581). This issue was not discussed by ministers, the commissioner told EUROPE as Article 50 has not yet been triggered. (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)