The negotiation in progress (and currently stalled) to bring to Milan not the regional headquarters (already planned), but one of the three central courts of the new unitary patent court (the other two are at Paris and Munich). On the one hand, in fact, there is Italy which – relying on all the “weight” of its manufacturing system and with all the credentials in order for the number of patents filed – has long been a candidate for Milan to host one of the three central offices of the future court (transferred from London due to Brexit) which will have to settle, with sentences that will have “jurisdiction” in all EU countries for the first time, disputes relating to patents and the protection of intellectual property.
On the other hand, there are France and Germany which, with the exit of London (since the legislation is ambiguous on what to do), had decided to take over the powers in the matter initially due to the City. And some would like to keep them.
More than a purely technical question or selfishness, an economic issue. An estimate – from a few years ago and perhaps not very reliable today – valued the induced activities of hosting a unitary patent court seat (between direct and indirect services) at over 300 million euros a year. Also because the London office was destined to deal with disputes concerning (beyond metallurgy) above all the chemical-pharmaceutical and biotech fields. «Greedy», millionaire and complex disputes.
In mid-February, therefore, the proposal from France and Germany arrived: yes, the transfer of the third headquarters to Italy, but leaving chemistry and metallurgy in Munich, and in Paris that portion of pharmaceutical patents with SPC (supplementary protection certificate: in practice, a certificate that extends the patent protection of a drug to allow it to recover the “lost” earnings in the time elapsed between the filing of the patent application and the actual marketing). In other words, at least 90% of the drugs that have been successful on the market. Thus, Italy would be left with patents on medicines without SPC (few and economically unattractive) and non-pharmaceutical biotech.
It’s not talked about. Italian counter-proposal (so far received coldly): no problem for metallurgy in Munich. But we keep chemistry (which is linked to pharmaceuticals) and in Paris only the share of pharmaceutical patents with SPC where the validity or infringement of the corresponding basic patent is not in question. Basically, we reach an agreement. The dossier is in fact under the attention of three ministries (Foreign Affairs, Companies and Made in Italy and Justice). And each minister has so far moved in this direction. But yesterday the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio – also for competence in the matter – wrote to his French (Eric Dupond-Moretti) and German (Marco Buschmann) counterparts to keep the point on the Italian position.