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UK formally abandons Europe's Unified Patent Court, Germany plans to move forward nevertheless:
The UK has formally ditched the Unified Patent Court (UPC), a project to create a single pan-European patent system that would fix the confusing mess of contradictory laws currently in place.
In a written statement in the House of Commons on Monday, the British undersecretary for science, research and innovation Amanda Solloway noted that: "Today, by means of a Note Verbale, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has withdrawn its ratification of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court."
The reason is, of course Brexit. "In view of the United Kingdom's withdrawal from the European Union, the United Kingdom no longer wishes to be a party to the Unified Patent Court system. Participating in a court that applies EU law and is bound by the CJEU would be inconsistent with the Government's aims of becoming an independent self-governing nation," she said.
[...] The whole idea of the UPC has been fought for over a decade now, making many its adherents borderline fanatical in making it a reality, even more so given frequent setbacks. In their unerring support, however, many seem willing to overlook or turn a blind eye to serious problems, not least of which is the mess that is the European Patent Office (EPO).
[...] The EPO is, of course, a big fan of the UPC and insists the UK leaving is a mere trifle to the larger European dream of a single patent system; a system that would give it significantly more power:
"These economic benefits for European companies and especially SMEs will not be affected by the announcement of the United Kingdom," it insisted in its submission to the German government.
"Even without the UK, the UP package will lead to significant simplification and cost reduction for the companies of the participating EU member states, which is also largely recognized by European companies."
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @06:04PM (32 children)
Notice how often the EU uses the word "Europe" to refer to itself, as if they are the representatives of the entire continent. As if the EU is inescapable and inevitable. As if any European country not a member of the EU doesn't exist.
The EU will ultimately fail in its grand aims like all poorly thought out utopias.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @06:26PM (1 child)
While (((they))) force member nations to replace actual Europeans with Arabs and Africans.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @08:18AM
> ... to replace actual Europeans with Arabs and Africans.
Islam is not a race. Don't distract from the real attack on Europe by switching to unrelated topics. The politicians may even encourage the illegal criticism of race to hide the more dangerous core problem of the resurgence of violent supremacist political movements nazism and islam.
(Score: 3, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @06:32PM (1 child)
Incidentally, it is quite common for people to mean USA when they simply say America. Does Trump mean both the American continents when he mentions MAGA?
(Score: 1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:32PM
The plural "Americas" exists, it's not widely used because nobody gives a shit about South America or Canada.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:00PM (23 children)
The EU is the new USSR. We must stand up against their tyranny and attempts to impose their laws and will on the rest of the world.
(Score: 2, Flamebait) by looorg on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:20PM (14 children)
I'm not super happy about it really. Current EU, and future EU, is not the EU most people voted about joining -- it started out as a sort of trade union but has now moved in a very disturbing direction I'm not sure I really want to be a part of at all. I was sort of hoping Brexit would have gone smoother and it would have rippled thru the northern parts of Europe to just ditch this crap cause this just isn't what was the plan. I'm also more scared that it's turning more into the new USSR then another say United States.
(Score: 2, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:16PM (1 child)
Some former members of the USSR are now in the EU. Would you like to ask them to compare?
No need - someone already has [independent.co.uk].
But keep on asking that DUMB ass question for another 4 years - maybe you'll finally read the answer.
(Score: 2, Troll) by looorg on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:32PM
I have already asked some of them since I worked with several people that left USSR. They liked it when they came here but are now seeing how the EU is changing and not for the better. I guess people can draw different conclusions about situations sometimes.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by Grishnakh on Sunday July 26 2020, @02:48AM (11 children)
Current EU, and future EU, is not the EU most people voted about joining -- it started out as a sort of trade union but has now moved in a very disturbing direction I'm not sure I really want to be a part of at all.
What exactly were you expecting, a confederation? Those don't work in real life. The United States tried that back in 1777, and it was a disaster. The Articles of Confederation only lasted 12 years until it was replaced with the Constitution, which created a far stronger central government. You can't have a confederacy with different member states having very different laws and monetary systems, and keep it together. The EU realized this, and created the "Euro" and tried to unify their monetary systems, but without a unified political system it isn't working that well because some countries used to manage themselves very differently than others (Greece vs. Germany). Now under the EU, countries like Greece haven't been allowed to just print more money like before, so they've had austerity forced on them by Germany and France, causing a lot of problems. We haven't had that problem in the US because we have a single federal government that controls monetary policy, and states really have no power over this at all.
The simple fact is that confederations just don't work (unless you're Switzerland, and even they have a single currency and monetary policy so it's not the same). And just having a trade union like the EEC was before the EU was formed really doesn't give you much power on the world stage; the EU could never be any kind of world power like China or the US without becoming a much stronger union, and enjoy the economic benefits that come from that power. Without unity, there's just too much economic friction internally, from currency exchanges, customs fees and regulations, etc.
(Score: 1, Troll) by looorg on Sunday July 26 2020, @03:09AM
That is a core issue here. They want a union of countries that had no business being in a union with each other due to vastly different circumstances. So what we ended up with is a system where a few countries are more or less paying for other countries that have shit economies just to be in a club together, but getting very little out of it. It's probably great if you are Germany or France, less great if you are not.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday July 26 2020, @01:03PM (9 children)
Depends on what you're trying to do with it. And the present day EU is a confederation FWIW.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Sunday July 26 2020, @07:26PM (8 children)
>And the present day EU is a confederation FWIW.
It is, and it's not working that well, nor does it seem like it's going to survive in its present form for too long. It's just like the US under the AoC: it managed to hang on for 12 years before they finally gave up because it was so ineffective. I predict the same will happen with the EU; they're going to have to make the central government stronger to keep the union together, or they'll just break apart, with Brexit already being the tip of the iceberg.
Basically, with politics like this, you have to decide whether you want more unity or more independence. There's benefits to both, and downsides. Unity = strength: you don't see any tiny little independent nations that have lots of economic clout. There are a few that manage to do well for themselves because they have powerful allies and rich natural resources (Norway is a big example here; if it weren't for all their oil/gas wealth they'd be a backwater and would probably be joining the EU), but most small, independent countries don't really do that well economically because they're just too small. The US is an example of the converse: it's very large, and uses that size (population), along with the natural resources that come with controlling that much land area, to create an enormous amount of power on the world stage, and then use that power to create even more economic benefits through controlling trade, and using its massive military power to suppress competition and keep trade on its terms and also have the world's reserve currency. But there's a cost to that unity: lots of internal friction between different interests and political groups inside, which are currently threatening to rip the country apart. The US just break up and become 50 different countries, with a few of those combining perhaps, but it wouldn't have remotely as much power as the whole, and China and Russia would end up becoming the new dominant powers on the planet. The EU countries by themselves wouldn't have much power to stop Russian aggression, which is why they need unity, but the way they're going about it now just isn't very effective and various members are feeling disenfranchised, threatening to destroy the union.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2020, @01:41AM (7 children)
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Monday July 27 2020, @09:07PM (6 children)
A simple trade union is what they had before, called the Schengen Zone. It was an improvement over separate customs borders between every country, but there was still a lot of internal friction because of the lack of a common currency and more harmonization of regulations between member states. Obviously, that wasn't good enough for them, which is why they formed the EU instead.
The root of the problem is that too many people want the huge economic benefits that come from unity, but they don't want to make the sacrifices to sovereignty that are required by it. You can't have it both ways. If you want independence and sovereignty, then you can't be part of a union, and everyone's going to have to negotiate trade deals separately with you, and you'll always be paying fees for currency exchange and customs for every economic transaction you make outside your country (which is going to be most transactions when your country is small and not self-sufficient and has to trade for everything). If you want the benefits that come from free trade with other member states, and a shared currency that's a heavyweight on the international stage, then you have to give up your sovereignty.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Monday July 27 2020, @11:23PM (5 children)
Actually you can. Unity doesn't magically provide economic benefits and its absence doesn't magically take them away. Here, the Schengen Area has provided most of the economic benefits of the present EU, the only real exceptions being the common currency and removal of tariffs (I don't include the state of peace in Europe either since it came about well before the EU did), neither which needs the authority of the EU to implement. So we have a lot of unity looking for a purpose and not finding it yet.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Tuesday July 28 2020, @08:59PM (4 children)
Here, the Schengen Area has provided most of the economic benefits of the present EU, the only real exceptions being the common currency and removal of tariffs
You mention those as if they're small things, and they just aren't. Having no tariffs and a common currency is absolutely necessary for being a world power. There's a reason the Norwegian Krone isn't a major world currency, and the American Dollar and the Euro are.
neither which needs the authority of the EU to implement
Absolutely wrong. You can't just create a shared currency and use it; you have to have a central government and a central bank to control the currency and set monetary policy. This is the whole reason there was a Eurozone crisis a few years ago: member states were bickering over the monetary policy, with certain states (like Greece and Portugal) wanting a very different policy from economically stronger states.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday July 28 2020, @11:02PM (3 children)
I called them "real exceptions".
Actually, yes, you can. It's not rocket science.
The central bank is the central government for the currency. They're not that hard to set up and don't take a lot of sovereignty.
Conflict of interest always is a thing. It doesn't matter the degree of unity.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday July 29 2020, @12:25AM (2 children)
>Actually, yes, you can. It's not rocket science.
Do you have any real-world examples? If not, then I reject your assertion.
>The central bank is the central government for the currency. They're not that hard to set up and don't take a lot of sovereignty.
And who runs the central bank? What kind of government is going to sign up to use a currency they have zero control over? I can think of one example: Zimbabwe (they use the American Dollar). That's not a very good example: that's a very troubled country that had extreme hyperinflation and switched to the USD for stability.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 29 2020, @02:36AM (1 child)
Wikipedia claims over four thousand private currencies. And there's the digital currencies which have been used for substantial trading and usually have no central bank in the first place.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Wednesday July 29 2020, @02:48AM
(Score: 4, Insightful) by turgid on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:44PM (7 children)
I have friends and colleagues from all over the world, including former Eastern Block (USSR) countries such as Romania, Bulgaria, Poland and Hungary. They are highly intelligent people and some are old enough to remember life under Communism and their parents certainly do. The are all pro-EU and are absolutely shocked and astounded that the UK has fallen for this divisive propaganda and has left the EU. The EU is nothing like the USSR.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: -1, Offtopic) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @08:28PM (2 children)
Vladimir Bukovsky disagreed [archive.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:25PM (1 child)
Why don't you listen to the 1hr audio and find the quote that you tell us support your position? Thanks.
(Score: -1, Troll) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @10:03PM
I did not assert a position but since you're interested, here's some excepts from a Brussels speech Bukovsky made in 2006.
(Score: 3, Troll) by rleigh on Saturday July 25 2020, @08:48PM (3 children)
"The most puzzling development in modern politics is the apparent determination of Western European leaders to re-create the Soviet Union in Western Europe" -- Mikhail Gorbachev.
(Score: 2) by turgid on Saturday July 25 2020, @10:25PM (2 children)
The most puzzling development in modern politics is the apparent attempt to recreate North Korra in the UK.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @10:34PM
Sounds right up your Korranation Street.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:16PM
The Brits and the Yanks tend to follow the same trends. Trump, Brexit, they share all the same redneck bullshit. If not for Quebec, you would see the same in Canada, only there they are trying to recreate Alberta...
Too bad Australia isn't Irish, eh?
(Score: 3, Funny) by turgid on Saturday July 25 2020, @07:45PM (3 children)
The USA will ultimately fail in its grand aims like all poorly thought out utopias.
See what I did there?
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 25 2020, @09:27PM (2 children)
You read the news about Portland and predicted the present?
(Score: 3, Insightful) by dry on Sunday July 26 2020, @04:51PM (1 child)
Electing a reality TV star was a sign.
(Score: 2, Insightful) by fustakrakich on Sunday July 26 2020, @05:26PM
The 50 year long introduction had flashing lights!
La politica e i criminali sono la stessa cosa..