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The UPC is a dead duck. Even if the other contracting parties were to agree to amend the text to allow non-EU countries to participate, there would undoubtedly be a second referral to the CJEU. In the absence of a mechanism in the agreement to ensure the supremacy of EU law (insofar as the UPC is concerned) in non-EFTA/EEA countries, it seems the CJEU would give a negative opinion.

The chances of the UPC coming into effect before 2020 are therefore remote, which would call into question the whole future of the project. Add to that Spain's unhappiness with the UPC, the internal strife at EPO and Barnier's expressed wish to move the UPC offices from London, and you have the ideal conditions to junk the whole thing.

Far better to re-work the UPC as an EU/EFTA/EEA agreement, managed by EUIPO with a patents chamber within the CJEU. The UK will have to make do with the PCT and come up with a system which takes in those EPO countries not currently eligible for the UPC, i.e. Albania, Macedonia, Serbia, etc.