You would think that the very first and most straightforward thing that the EU could have done was to introduce a unified approach to IP, patents and rights. Fifty years on they are hawking sticky plasters. Above is a map of the transferrability of IP rights - purple is good, red is bad, yellow is so so.
A ‘unified’ IP approach does not include Europe’s biggest pirates, Spain. It does include the country with most counterfeiting, Italy and the two biggest consumers of IP, Germany and the UK are only half ‘in’.
What a mess.