In June 2017, the German President announced that he would postpone signing the legislation to implement the UPC, following a request from the Federal Constitutional Court of Germany based on a constitutional complaint by an unnamed party. That complaint is now slowly making its way through the German system with a deadline of 31st December 2017 set for third parties to provide comments.
Meanwhile, Brexit and a UK general elections have not helped progress of the ratification bill and other legislation through the UK and Scottish parliaments. However, we can nowannounce that this juggernaut is again moving forwards with a UK Statutory Instrument entitled Unified Patent Court (Immunities and Privileges) Order 2017 being unanimously approved by the Delegated Legislation Committee. This will now be set before both houses of parliament for approval, with the House of Lords sitting on 6th December 2017. There is thus a more than realistic possibility that the UK will ratify before Christmas, further increasing the pressure on Germany to move the constitutional complaint forwards with expediency.
We hope to be able to provide further news on this matter once the deadline for comments has passed in the new year.