The End Of The UPC As We Know It?

The German Federal Constitutional Court has issued a decision* (in German) which ruled the German UPCA Ratification Law to be unconstitutional and void. However, the court dismissed the second set of arguments (violation of fundamental democratic rights and the principle of separation of powers) as inadmissible.

So while a significant blow to progress of the UPC, it is possible that the UPC bill could be presented once more to the Bundestag, where the present Government might be able to get the required two-thirds majority. Of course, this will take a while to be tabled in view of the present global COVID-19 crisis and also raises the possibility of whether the same complaint could be brought again but focussed on more substantive aspects like transfer of sovereign rights, issues with the EPO, judges, to name but a few. Furthermore, given that the UK has indicated it will no longer seek to participate in unitary patent and UPC, the agreement in its current...