BREAKING: German Constitutional Court stops implementing legislation for Unitary Patent Package

German Constitutional Court's building

According to a tweet by journalist Hendrik Wieduwilt, the German Constitutional Court has asked the German legislator not to put implementing legislation for the Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent into force. More to be reported in tomorrow's FAZ (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung).

Apparently, in the meantime the information has been confirmed by the spokesperson for the Bundesverfassungsgericht.

Needless to say, this is a bombshell. According to the Legal Tribune Online, the request by the Court is due to a constitutional complaint by an unnamed private person.

IPKat will keep you posted on further developments.

UPDATE 13 June 2017, 7:35 GMT: The FAZ article mentioned above has been published. According to the article, the Constitutional Court asked the German President on 3April 2017 first orally, then in writing, not to sign off on the implementing legislation for the Unitary Patent Package. This is rather unusual. The court apparently considers the complaint (2 BvR 739/17) not wholly without merit ("nicht von vorneherein aussichtslos"). It is still unknown who the complainant is. Given the docket number from 2017, this is not one of the Mundipharma complaints which have been pending for a while.