A last-minute deal by governments to re-write the torturously agreed rules on a single EU patent breaks community law, according to lawyers working for the European Parliament.
In a legal opinion on the proposal, Parliament's legal service said that while member states were legally entitled to propose amendments to the bill, the articles they took out - numbers 6 to 8 - remove an "essential element".
Moreover, it would breach the provision in the EU treaties to adopt "measures fo...
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