This article was first published in Intellectual Property Magazine, November 2018.

On 10 September, the Max Plank Institute for Innovation and Competition in Munich published: “The Impact of Brexit on Unitary Patent Protection and its Court”, which claims that the EU law makes it incompatible for the UK to participate in the UPC after Brexit.

In an article published on Managing Intellectual Property on 27 November, Alan Johnson and Greg Bacon, amongst others, explained their point of view:

“The paper makes several statements about it being politically undesirable or untenable to have the UK in the system, with numerous self-serving references to the authors’ own previous papers, while at the same time describing those with an opposing view as pro-UK advocates.” “This purist approach colours the whole paper, and gives it the feel of a rather political, rather than purely legal treatise.”

You can read the full article on the Intellectual Property Magazine website.