Handling of preliminary references to the European Court of Justice
You are welcome to express your views on European Court of Justice (ECJ) references. We will consider these views when deciding whether to submit a government response to the Court. However, you should be aware of the tight timescales we face.
Member states get 2 months from receiving notification of the case from the court to make written observations. The United Kingdom (UK) gets a further 2 weeks because of our distance from Luxembourg. Most references on intellectual property law find their way to us, via the Treasury Solicitor, within 2 weeks of receipt in the UK.
Within the 2-month period we must take a view on whether the UK should make observations and, if so, make the case for intervention to the relevant Minister. Only after political agreement has been obtained can a barrister be instructed to prepare the observations.
This process typically takes about 5 weeks. Thus we have a maximum of 3 weeks to decide upon the advice it should offer to the Minister.
Intellectual Property references are posted on this website, but there may be short delays in updates being recorded. Given the timescale described above, submissions are more likely to have the potential to influence our thinking if they are received within 7-10 days of the notice being posted.
It would not be appropriate for us to engage in discussions with interested parties as to the merit of any particular argument put forward, but we do consider carefully all points of view expressed to us.
