Germany to ratify UPC

The department responsible for the legal system in Germany has revealed it will be ratifying the Unified Patent Court (UPC) proposals.

German Federal Minister of Justice, Heiko Maas, said he would submit a draft law ratifying the agreement after the coming summer.

Should Germany confirm the agreement it will become the second of three countries required to do so for the proposals to become law.

France, Germany and the UK, which will all host court headquarters, are required to ratify the proposals before they can be implemented.

Last August, Austria became the first EU country to confirm its agreement and last month WIPR reported that France had become the first of the big three to agree. Maas revealed the German decision during a speech to the Federal Association of German Patent Attorneys in Berlin.

During the speech, Maas also announced plans for four local divisions of the UPC to be based in Düsseldorf, Hamburg, Mannheim and Munich.

“Germany is actively involved in the preparatory work and has taken over the chairmanship of the relevant working group," Maas said, according to the Department of Justice’s official website.

Mass added that work on the implementation of the UPC is already “well advanced” and that the launch of the new system within the coming year was therefore realistic.

However, WIPR reported yesterday that the UPC’s preparatory committee, which has been given the task of overseeing implementation, has conceded it is “unlikely” the new system will be ready before the end of 2015.

Initially the committee had set early 2015 as its proposed implementation date.

“It is clear to the committee that the ambitious target date of early 2015, decided at its first meeting, cannot be accomplished,” a committee statement said, adding that it “remained focused” on the task.

The UPC system will involve local, regional and central divisional courts hearing disputes about the validity and infringement of unitary patents.