“BREXIT” and Intellectual Property Protection in the UK and the EU

355-361The UK referendum vote of 23 June 2016 on “BREXIT”, in favour of leaving the European Union (EU), will have significant consequences for the protection of intellectual property (IP) in Europe. Although the procedure by which the UK will leave the EU has not yet been initiated and will then take at least two years to complete, during which time the UK will remain a member of the EU, in the short term the most immediate effect had been thought to be the delay which it would occasion to the entry into force of the new Unified Patents Court and new European Patent with unitary effect, although at the end of November 2016 the UK Government, to the surprise of many, indicated that it would still proceed with ratifying the Treaty that underlies this new system. In the longer term BREXIT will limit the geographical scope of certain unitary EU IP rights, which will in due course cease to apply in the UK, and will require in some cases that the UK introduce national legislation corresponding to a degree to the EU legislation that will no longer apply to the UK. The precise nature of the consequences for the UK will depend on whether or not the UK becomes a member of the European Economic Area (EEA), although given that doing so would require adherence to many principles of EU law to which those who campaigned for BREXIT most strongly objected, the political viability of this option seems uncertain