Not long ago we posted about Italy’s change of direction in relation to the Unified Patent Court and the Unitary Patent, and its notification to the European Council of its intention to participate to the enhanced cooperation. It seems however that more happened this summer concerning the ratification of the UPC Agreement:
- Bristows reports that Finland is progressing towards a ratification by the end of 2015. The Finish Ministry of Employment and Economy in fact set up in February 2015 a working group to prepare the ratification of the UPCA. This working group published to this effect a draft for a Government Bill focusing on “how its provisions will be brought into force in the country and on how national legislation would be amended to align it with the provisions of the Agreement “, which should be considered this autumn. The UPCA would then become part of the national legislation thanks to a special piece of legislation and therefore entail for Finland an amendment of its Patent Code, Criminal Code, Code of Judicial Procedure and the Enforcement Code.
- Bristows also notes that The Netherlands, Lithuania and Estonia are moving towards ratification in the coming months, while Germany’s ratification process is due to start in autumn 2015 and the UK’s ratification is scheduled for spring 2016.
- The Kluwer Patent Blog published a post on Slovakia and the Czech Republic’s ratifications. It highlights the problems that these countries might face with the Unitary Patent renewal fees and the Unified Patent Court fees. Martin Husovec, a Slovak-born lawyer, academic and Doctoral Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute in Munich interviewed by the Blog explains that both countries will in fact face “a sky-rocketing increase in the number of valid patents on their territory“, which means that “many activities that have been open to free competition will now need to be licensed and paid for“. The cost of doing business in these countries will therefore increase. Second, “it is likely that in the future UPC cases involving Czech or Slovak companies, they will most often be the defending party. For them, the proposed UPC fees, sometimes more than hundred times higher than currently at national courts, is not going to be good news.” Finally the Czech Confederation of Industry complains that “the consequence of the introduction of high fees will not be better accessibility of the protection of the rights of our inventors, but rather creation of an arena for the ‘activities’ of economically stronger multinational corporations.” The Czech Republic and Slovakia have therefore signaled that if their concerns are not addressed, they might considerably delay their ratification.
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