The preparations for the Unified Patent Court are going on so the court can start functioning as soon as possible if the German Constitutional Court rejects the challenges to the Unitary Patent project. The UPC Preparatory Committee has declared this in an update which was published on its website on 19 december 2018. It is…

Early on Monday 10 December 2018, the Court of Justice of the European Union issued its judgment in Wightman et al v Secretary of State for Exiting the European Union (C-621/18), on whether the UK can unilaterally withdraw its Brexit notification. Although of course the judgment is strictly a legal reasoning, it also comes as…

(Corrected) The American Food Drug Administration (FDA) will follow the European Medicines Agency from London to Amsterdam because of the Brexit. That is clear from a report on the website of the FDA, describing its international activities. “Since the first foreign office opened in Beijing in November of 2008, FDA’s international presence has grown to…

Whilst it is highly debatable whether the EU Withdrawal Agreement will get through the UK Parliament, the chances are that if any revised deal is struck later, the IP provisions will remain unchanged.  (The Johnson brothers, and even Jacob Rees-Mogg are unlikely to be terribly exercised about matters such as the continued application post- 31…

If a Brexit agreement is reached with the European Union, the UK can stay in the Unitary Patent system during the transitional period and likely be part of the system once this comes into effect. This was argued last week by Kevin Mooney of Simmons & Simmons, who is closely involved in the creation of…

The UK Government issued guidance today on patent issues to allow businesses and citizens to understand what to do in a ‘no Brexit deal’ scenario. The so-called Technical Notice includes information about the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court, and explains that it is unclear whether the UP system will start before the Brexit date of 29…

A recent study by two eminent scholars from the Max Planck Institute for Innovation and Competition (MPI) on „The Impact of Brexit on Unitary Patent Protection and its Court“, which is available here, casts significant doubts whether it will be possible for the United Kingdom to stay in the UPC Agreement after the UK has…

The United Kingdom wants to stay in the Unitary Patent system post-Brexit. This has been confirmed in the UK’s Brexit White Paper, which was published today. According to article 151 of the paper, ‘The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement and intends to explore staying in the Court and unitary patent system after…

The UK has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The Minister for Intellectual Property, Sam Gyimah MP, confirmed this today. As was announced in a government press release: ‘Ratification brings the international court one step closer to reality. The Agreement on the Unified Patent Court (UPC) is an international treaty. The international court will have jurisdiction over patent…