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The Italian government has announced that it will nominate Milan to host the new headquarters of the Unified Patent Court (TUB), a European court that will come into operation in the coming years. For several weeks the government had been undecided whether it would choose Milan or Turin, led respectively by a mayor elected with the Democratic Party and a mayor from the 5-Star Movement, the two main parties that support the government.
What is the bathtub?
The Unified Patent Court will be an international court that will judge disputes about alleged infringements of the European patent with unitary effect (European patents with unitary effect, EPUE), a mechanism approved in 2013 by most European Union countries to harmonize patent application procedures – and protect it from possible misappropriation – in European countries.
At least since the 1970s there has been talk of the need to have a single European office that guarantees and protects European patents, but due to various bureaucratic and administrative obstacles the idea has never materialized: at the moment there is a kind of patent but it consists of only a facilitated procedure to register the same project in the 27 national patent offices, which maintain jurisdiction over the granting and infringement of patents in the individual states. Having 27 offices instead of just one requires enormous costs and resources for those applying for a patent: especially for small and medium-sized companies, who have to pay a fee to 27 offices each year, each of which also works in the national language and follow the laws. of his country.
The new EPUE was designed to harmonize and simplify existing procedures, but since it was approved it has encountered many obstacles. First, it took member states several years to ratify its introduction (Italy, for example, only did so in 2017). Then there was Brexit (London would be one of the three court seats, in addition to the central one in Paris and Munich) and finally a German Constitutional Court ruling issued in March 2020 that effectively suspended Germany’s participation. to the new mechanism.
The 2013 agreement provides that the EPEU and the unitary court will enter into force after the approval of 13 member states – currently there are 16 – among which, however, must be the three countries that had the highest number of European patents in 2012.: and among the three countries are Germany and the United Kingdom (the third is France). Experts even doubt that the agreement will ever enter into force: in a communication dated July 21, the Italian Ministry of Economic Development wrote that “at the moment it is not possible to predict a date for the entry into force of the new system, which is estimated, as an indication, will not be operational before 2022 ”.
Because we’re talking about it right now
A meeting of the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court (TUB), the body that works to make the court operational once the 2013 agreement enters into force, is scheduled for September 10 in Brussels. Republic, the Committee “will have to decide how and where to move the third seat of the court”, given that except for surprises the United Kingdom will leave the European Union at the end of the year (and a few weeks ago it confirmed that it will also leave the agreement on the European patent).
For months there has been talk of the possibility that the Italian government designates a city to host the third headquarters of the TUB, in addition to those of Paris and Munich: several observers believe that Italy can somehow be “compensated” with the commission of the TUB after losing the possibility of hosting the European Medicines Agency (EMA) in 2017 after a controversial draw that favored Amsterdam to the detriment of Milan. Although the TUB does not guarantee the turnover and prestige of the EMA, an estimate by the European Commission a few years ago cited by Sole 24 Mineral speculates that it could generate a turnover of around 300 million euros per year for the host city, as well as possible synergies with universities and local law firms.
What happened in the majority of the government?
The positions on the city that the government should propose to the Committee were different: some parliamentarians of the 5 Star Movement had pushed Turin, whose mayor Chiara Appendino is one of the most recognized leaders of the party, and explained to the Corriere della Sera that “the most important national law firms specialized in intellectual property have their headquarters in Turin, without counting important institutions such as the University and Polytechnic and private research and innovation centers.” Second Linkiesta Turin’s candidacy was also supported by the Minister of Foreign Affairs and former political leader of the M5S, Luigi Di Maio.
The Milan candidacy was supported instead by the Lombard Democratic Party, by the mayor of the city Beppe Sala, elected with the center-left, by the regional government, led by the center-right, and also by some leaders of the M5S such as the Vice Minister of Economic Development Stefano Buffagni, from Milan.
Various pieces of civil society had also moved to Milan, with a letter signed – as well as by the mayor of Milan Beppe Sala and the regional president Attilio Fontana – by the president of the Milan Court of Appeals Marina Anna Tavassi and by the President of the Chamber. of the Milanese trade agency Carlo Sangalli, who argued that choosing Milan was the most logical option: “Milan is one of the most innovative European cities: of the 4,456 patent applications submitted by Italy to the European Patent Office in 2019, the 21% comes from here, 940, and we reached 34 percent, 1,493, considering Lombardy “, the letter reads. The company that manages part of the Expo spaces has already given its willingness to host the TUB in its own facilities.
Instead, Piedmontese parliamentarians from the Democratic Party had circulated the hypothesis of a shared candidacy between Turin and Milan, but it was not clear whether the TUB Preparatory Committee could consider such a hypothesis.
In the end, the government chose Milan, at the end of the Council of Ministers on Thursday night. Turin, for its part, will host the Italian Institute of Artificial Intelligence, which the Prime Minister described in a note as “a research and technology transfer structure capable of attracting talents from the international market and, at the same time, becoming a point of reference for the development of artificial intelligence in Italy ».
“The objective”, the note continues, “is to create a synergy between the two cities and the government and at the same time consolidate the country’s northwestern axis: a strategy that would further strengthen Milan and Turin and, with them, Italy.” Neither the municipality of Milan nor that of Turin have yet ruled on the government’s decision.
Will TUB really go to Milan?
It is unclear how strong Milan’s bid is for other European countries. the Sole 24 Mineral writes that the governments of France and the Netherlands designated Paris and Amsterdam respectively; in the first case, the central office could absorb the powers of the third office, which should deal mainly with health patents. “It is not ruled out that, in the absence of convincing alternatives, the other two central divisions, Paris and Munich, will press to assume the powers previously assigned to London,” explains the Only.
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