Now or never: if the Government cares about the future of the Italian pharmaceutical industry (which produces 52% of the medicines sold in Europe) it must move now, bringing the “theft” of competences to the detriment of the headquarters of the Unified European Patent Court (UPC: Unified Patent Court) which will have to be assigned to Milan. A robbery that would frustrate the prospect of making the Lombard capital the European Innovation Hub for the industrial innovation process in this sector, attracting important foreign investments to Italy.
Insistent rumors say that already on April 25 the UPC Administrative Committee will address the issue of the fate of the London headquarters of the European Patent Court, which has become unavailable due to Brexit, and that on that occasion the Italian representatives – diplomats without specific expertise in the matter of intellectual property – will formulate a proposal agreed with their French and German counterparts which will provide for the reassignment of this headquarters to Milan, but with very limited powerscompared to those attributed to London and which included all the chemical-pharmaceutical patents (while the electronic ones go to Paris and the mechanical ones to Monaco). In practice, Milan would “transfer” to Paris the chemical-pharmaceutical patents for which there is a Supplementary Protection Certificate (today granted for the majority of those that lead to a drug on the market) and all the rest of the chemistry to Monaco. Read more
