Mr. John Murphy:

The Chairman highlighted concerns among the legal profession that it might lose out if plans proceed to establish a European patent court. I understand the Chairman wrote to the Minister about this issue and received a detailed reply. I do not have much to add as we are only in the early stages of working out what needs to be put in place. The question of whether there is sufficient existing and potential patent work in Ireland to justify seeking to have a local court is one that will require further consideration by Government, including by our colleagues in the Department of Justice and Equality. On the face of it, it seems a fairly tall order given that we generally see only two or three cases per year and 50 is the type of scale we would probably need to justify such a request. There is a suggestion that there might potentially be a lot of work which would not necessarily end up in cases. That, however, is a difficult argument to sustain. We have not worked out our position on this.