Die Errichtung des Einheitlichen Patentgerichts als Fall für den verfassungsändernden Gesetzgeber

By an order of 13 February 2020, the German Federal Constitutional Court has declared invalid the Act of Approval to the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court which had been voted by the German legislator in 2017. Following the reasoning of the Federal Constitutional Court, the Agreement contains substantive modifications of the German constitution and requires therefore an approval by a two-third majority, a condition which had not been fulfilled by the 2017 voting. Moreover, the Federal Constitutional Court leaves open the question if the German legislator would be able to approve the Agreement at all, as it contains a provision which expressly accepts the primacy of European Union law.