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Germany's Federal Constitutional Court has dealt the latest blow to the plan to create a Unified Patent Court for Europe.

The German court ruled Friday that a two-third majority of the Bundestag is required to give Germany's approval to the project. Germany's parliament unanimously approved the proposal in 2017, but with only a small fraction of the legislators present and no quorum determined.

In a public notice explaining its decision, the court said that judicial power in Germany is exercised by the Federal Constitutional Court, the federal courts and the courts of the Lander. "Any conferral of judicial functions on international courts modifies this comprehensive allocation of jurisdiction and, in this respect, constitutes an amendment of the Constitution in substantive terms," triggering the two-thirds requirement, the court said.

Friday's decision was seen as a major setback, if not necessarily a fatal one, to a project that's been underway for some 40 years. Plans for a Unified Patent Court (UPC) gained momentum several years ago when 25 of the then-27 EU member states supported a UPC that would have exclusive jurisdiction over unitary patents, including infringement and validity proceedings. The agreement provided that at least 13 member states would have to ratify, including at minimum France, Germany and the UK.

Since then, Britain has pulled out of the project in the wake of Brexit, and now Germany's support is back at square one.

Jin Ooi, a London-based intellectual property partner with Kirkland & Ellis International, called the decision "a massive blow to UPC supporters."

"German ratification is a pre-condition to the UPC getting up and running," he said. "It is now back to the drawing board for Germany and whether or not they wish to proceed without the UK's involvement."

Christian Liedtke, an international IP litigator based in Costa Mesa, California, said he actually sees the German decision as providing the UPC a second lease on life. "Reading the court's judgment closely, dicta suggests the court is not at all convinced that the substantive concerns asserted against the UPC have merit," he said.

Industry sentiment about the idea remains positive, and putting together a two-thirds vote could be fairly do-able, he said. "Those that have gone into full mourning over this decision, calling it the death nail of the UPC, may rejoice finding the coffin to be far from shut," he said.

Ooi sounded less sanguine. Whether political willpower remains, "with what is going on in the world at the moment, the UPC project is likely to take a back seat for a long time," he said.