Business group IBEC has called on the Government to publish a timetable for ratifying an agreement setting up a Unified Patent Court (UPC).

The organisation said that Austria’s recent ratification of the deal had cleared the way for the court to start work in 2022 – with or without Ireland.

Aidan Sweeney (IBEC’s senior public-sector and regulatory executive) said that “prompt action” was now needed.

Local division

“Government must immediately set out its timetable for Ireland’s ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. We must urgently reconfirm our continued commitment to the UPC, or else the country could miss out,” he warned.

Sweeney also repeated IBEC’s call on the Government to set up a local division of the court, arguing that it would bring substantial gains for the economy.

He said that such a court – English-speaking and rooted in common-law tradition – would be attractive to indigenous and multi-national companies, adding that Ireland was “uniquely positioned to establish itself on the international stage as a patent-enforcement hotspot”.