Tuesday 3 June 2014

Danes vote to ratify the Unified Patent Court agreement

But 5-0 is not enough ...
Via a European Commission media release comes news that the Danes have voted in a referendum in favour of joining the Unified Patent Court (UPC).  This decision empowers the Danish Parliament to ratify the UPC Agreement.

Denmark will be the fifth member state to ratify it (after Austria, Belgium, France and Malta). However, the UPC will not come into being untl the UPC Agreement has been ratified by 13 European Union Member States (which must include Germany and the UK in addition to France).

Germany has indicated its willingness to ratify the agreement, which it proposes to do so later this year. The UK expects to ratify the agreement before the end of the current parliament in 2015, following passage of the Intellectual Property Act 2014 which makes provision for that eventuality.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Is there any indication of the voter turnout for the referendum?

If it wasn't held at the same time as the European Parliament or other elections, I wouldn't expect a record-breaking turnout (at least not in a positive sense). Of course, if the people could vote on the issue of bifurcation, you'd be able to see the voting queues from space.