Milan – The finish line was reached “at the end of a long and complex political and diplomatic journey”, the result of a post-Brexit distribution of skills previously concentrated in London and now divided between Milan, Paris and Munich. For Milan it is also a redemption, after having lost in 2017 had lost the challenge with Amsterdam to host the headquarters of theEuropean Medicines Agency.
The headquarters of the Central Division of Milan of the Unified Patent Court (Tub), with a ceremony in the great hall of the Justice palace and then the ribbon cutting at the Court, with an audience of ministers and authorities. An office of the international court, with the function of resolve disputes and assess violationsopened in the Italian capital region of patents: the Lombardyaccording to data from Assolombarda, in the face of a population that accounts for only 17% of the Italian total, it is leader of innovation with over 5 billion euros of expenditure in research and development per year, equal to 20% of the national total, and con 1,626 patent applications filed with the European Patent Office in 2023 alone, 32% of the total.
In 2023, compared to 2015, the Lombardy’s patent applications increased by 16.2%although the gap with the best performing European driving regions is still significant: Lombardy’s 1,626 patents are still about a quarter of those of Bavaria, at 6,840 in 2023. Milan also has 2,478 companies registered in the startup section of the Business Register, out of 3,438 in Lombardy and 12,850 in Italy. President of the Court of Milan, Fabio Roia, defines the Tub as a “level jurisdiction” that “creates induced and is also a victory for the country system”. The president of the Court of Appeal, Giuseppe Ondei, highlights that “the local and central section of the Tub will have to promote innovation” and, according to the president of the Bar Association Antonino La Lumia, it will also be a “great opportunity for the entire Italian legal profession”. Present at the inauguration, among others, were the Minister of Justice Carlo Nordio and the Minister of Foreign Affairs Antonio Tajani. It is an “achievement”, explains Nordio, “for the long negotiations that have allowed us to secure strategic skills, and the opening of the third hub in Milan will also allow us to rebalance the center of gravity of an institution destined over time to assume an ever greater specific weight”.
The choice, according to the councilor for economic development of the municipality, Alessia Cappello“reaffirms the key role of Milan in the world’s largest economic area, the EU internal market”. The Milanese headquarters, in the division of responsibilities, will deal with pharmaceuticals, agri-food and fashion. “Milan consolidates its attractive and economic strength – he underlines the president of Confcommercio and the Chamber of Commerce of Milan Carlo Sangalli – the repercussions will be significant for the related industries and for the creation of new jobs. The challenges that await us, starting with an expansion of skills, begin today”.
President of Assolombarda, Alessandro Spada, launches an appeal: “We must try to obtain a rebalancing of the skills shared with France and Germany and to be able to obtain a more solid influence, in particular, on chemistry and pharmaceuticals. To do so, however, we must all work in the same direction”. Challenges on the table on the day of the finishing line, in a city that has 136 large companies with annual turnover of over one billion euros and 4,800 foreign multinationals. The President of the Region, Attilio Fontana, he dedicated the achievement of the goal to his predecessor Roberto Maroni. “An extraordinary result – said the governor of Lombardy – that comes at the end of a long and complex journey that saw us as protagonists in an action to convince the qualities of Milan and Lombardy as the national center of innovation and intellectual property”.
