Despite the recent ruling of the German Constitutional Court, Elena Bertolotto, a legal expert at BusinessEurope who was contacted by EUROPE on Friday 24 April, hopes that Germany will be able to ratify the agreement on the creation of a unified patent court before the end of the German government's mandate in September 2021.
At the end of March, the German Constitutional Court in Karlsruhe declared the parliamentary act approving the agreement on the unified patent court invalid on the grounds that the Bundestag, the German national parliament, did not achieve the required majority for the vote, i.e. two-thirds of MPs.
The judgment dashed any hopes for a rapid ratification of the agreement, but its death warrant has not yet been signed, according to the expert, who noted that the German government immediately then committed itself to proceeding with ratification as soon as possible.
In the opinion of Mrs Bertolotto, it is necessary to move as quickly as possible, and all the more so because of the COVID-19 pandemic; the unitary patent will enable all European companies, including SMEs, to be granted a patent more quickly, while enduring less red tape and incurring lower costs, thereby promoting economic recovery after the pandemic.
The ratification of the agreement is fraught with difficulties, however, and has been going on for almost 8 years (see EUROPE 10755/12). Another blow is the fact that at the end of February, the British government announced that it was withdrawing from the unitary patent on the grounds that it did not want to submit to a General Court linked to the Court of Justice of the European Union.
In response to these recent developments, BusinessEurope published an open letter on Wednesday 22 April that called for the prompt ratification of the agreement, providing assurances that even without the UK’s involvement, the unified patent system would cover a very large part of the European economy. It can be consulted here: https://bit.ly/356neMe (Original version in French by Pascal Hansens)