The EU Unitary Patent at the Beginning of 2012 - News from Brussels, London, and Copenhagen

The first two articles on our ksnh::law blog in 2012 have drawn a promising but fragile picture on the condition of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court in the beginning of 2012. It certainly is a sign of progress (although some would say in the wrong direction) that the Secretariat of the EU Council is about to finalise the Regulation for implementing the Unitary Patent (see Document CM 1068/12). Apparently, the dice is cast with respect to the Unitary Patent and, thus, with respect to the highly controversial question as to whether or not Articles 6 to 8 (effects of patents) should remain in the proposed Regulation so that substantive patent law will be subject to review by the Court of Justice of the European Union in future. As opposed to the opinion of some players (and some bloggers) but in line with others (see e.g. here, sec 1.2.2), it is the position of the ksnh::law blogging team that, when having a look to the overall structures of patent law, it appears to be completely coherent to include these provisions just into the Regulation (which replaces national patent law comprising similar statutory clauses). But, as we all know, further problems need to be solved in case of the Agreement on the Unitary Patent Court, especially the "things that are not so difficult", as addressed by EU Commission President Barroso below, namely the decision as to where the important Central Division of the Unified Patent Court will be situated. Candidate cities with good prospect are reported to be London, Paris, and Munich. It is expected that this stuck issue will have to be decided on the level of the heads of government by lateral talks between Prime Minister David Cameron, President Nicolas Sarcozy and Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel on the margins of some EU meeting. In another article titled "European Scrutiny Committee of the UK House of Commons On Unitary Patent" we reported on concerns of the 'UK Scrutiny Committee' that the new unitary patent system could disadvantage British small businesses. Since the conclusions of the Committee were not very favourable, questions may arise as to whether or not such national concerns could endanger the entire project of unitary patent protection in Europe when the UK Government and Prime Minister David Cameron listen to such voices. And if so, would David Cameron really dare to bury the second important EU project with in a few months. JM Baroso and H Thorning-Schmidt meet on 12 January 2012 in Copenhagen Officially, the new year began for the European patent system project with the Danish administration under social-democrat Prime Minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt taking over the Presidency of the EU Council from Poland and making clear that the EU Patent Package (Directive on Unitary Patent; Agreement on Unified Patent Court…