On 17th November the European Patent Organisation adopted the distribution key for the repartition of the 50% share of the participating Member States in the renewal fee income among them.
In fact while the EPO retains 50% of the renewal fee income, its Select Committee had to decide how the apportionment of the 50% share of the Unitary patent renewal fees would be apportioned amongst the participating EU Member States.
According to Bristows “it has been agreed that for an initial period of operation the 50% of the fees (minus an administrative charge) will be distributed according to a formula that takes account of the GDP and the number of applications filed from each participating Member State.“