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| Author Francesco Ungaro Licence CCO 1.0 Deed Source Wikimedia |
It is ironic that the government of one of the countries that challenged the unitary patent and the establishment of the Unified Patent Court in Joined Cases C-274/11 and C-295/11, Kingdom of Spain and another v European Commission and others : [2013] EUECJ C-274/11 has just signed an agreement with the Unified Patent Court for Milan to host a section of the Central Division of the Court of First Instance of the Unified Patent Court (see The Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and International Cooperation's press release of 26 Jan 2024 Headquarters Agreement signed between Italy and the Unified Patent Court).
Painful though this announcement is for many of us who had been looking forward to practising before a pan-European patent court for the better part of our lives it was an inevitable consequence of the British government's reversal of policy on the Unified Patent Court between 2018 and 2020 (see Jane Lambert Volte-Face on the Unified Patent Court Agreement 29 Feb 2020 NIPC News). In his capacity as Foreign Secretary the former MP, Boris Johnson, deposited an instrument of ratification of the agreement on World Intellectual Property Day 2018 which was nearly two years after the brexit referendum. As soon as he became Prime Minister less than 2 years later he withdrew this country from the agreement.
The decision of the Administrative Committee of the Unified Patent Court to change all references to London in the UPC Agreement to references to Milan pursuant to art 87 of the Agreement was taken on 26 June 2023. The launch of the UPC appears to have been a great success. According to a report on the caseload of the court dated 1 Feb 2024 the Court of First Instance has received a total
number of 217 cases and the Court of Appeal has received 11 appeals.
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