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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Solloway noted that: "Today, by means of a Note Verbale, the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland has withdrawn its ratification of the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court."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: 4, Informative) by canopic jug on Saturday July 25 2020, @06:06PM
The last thing we need is to give patents and copyright more power
The death of the UPC [techrights.org] through the loss of the UK from Europe was confirmed this way at the beginning of the year. That was one small benefit of Brexit, perhaps the only one. It may be a few years before the crooks pushing for it can regroup and try some other way to sneak software patents into Europe. The UPC was mainly intended as a way of doing an end run around European laws in order to impose software patents. The 1973 European Patent Convention specifically excludes software from patent law, leaving copyright for that.
Now that Groklaw is in archive mode and the other sites have either shut down or changed topics, Roy at Techrights has really been the last one to cover the UPC [techrights.org] or, for that matter, the profoundly corrupt EPO [techrights.org] which has been pushing for the UPC.
The UPC is dead, but the crowd pushing for it has not been jailed yet. So keep your eyes open for further developments and possible need to defend software use (and development) in the EU.
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