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ES – MINISTER FOR ECONOMIC AFFAIRS: SPAIN WILL NOT JOIN THE UPC

24 Mar 2017

Spain will not join the UPC. Minister for Economic Affairs Luis de Guindos rejects Spanish accession to the UPC during a session of Spanish Parliament 

Luis de Guindos, the Spanish Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy, has explicitly dismissed the possibility of Spain’s joining the Unitary Patent Court (“UPC”) system. The point was made while responding to a parliamentary question posed by Patricia Blanquer, a social-democratic MP, who recently submitted a motion supporting Spain’s accession to the UPC system.

The reasons given Wednesday for dismissing the motion do not essentially deviate from the original arguments opposing the UPC. Mr. de Guindos again argued again that Spain’s exclusion from the UPC’s official languages amounted to discrimination and would be detrimental to small- and medium-sized businesses from non-English-, French-, and German-speaking countries. However, a distinctively new argument was added to the earlier ones: In response to the parliamentary question, Mr. de Guindos also referred to “concerns about legal certainty” as another reason why Spain has not joined the UPC to date.

Reported by: Luis Fernández-Novoa, HOYNG ROKH MONEGIER