As Britain, France and Germany haggle over which country should host a Europe-wide patent court, the professional body for UK intellectual property lawyers has warned that the proposed court would not be in the public interest - and could be ‘ruinous’ for business.

The Council of Bars and Law Societies of Europe (CCBE) meanwhile, which represents one million lawyers across the continent, has said the proposed court would be ‘unworkable’ and would lead to increased costs and legal uncertainty. Proposals for a single Europe-wide patent date back to 1973. Securing patents in all 27 EU member states costs a business around €30,000, about 15 times the cost of a typical US patent. The European Commission argues that this damages European competitiveness.

An agreement to create a single patent court was to be signed in December 2011, but Britain, France and Germany failed to agree over which is to host the institution. European Commission president José Manuel Barrosa accused the three countries of putting national interests before the common good and called for a speedy end to ‘such a trivial disagreement’. The Hargreaves report on intellectual property last year estimated that the patent court could generate £2.1bn a year in fees for UK law firms.

However, the chair of the Intellectual Property Lawyers Association, Philip Westmacott, urged caution. ‘The proposed court will be more in the common bad than the common good if it is rushed through. International patent law is complex and for SMEs in particular, potentially ruinous. Early bad decisions could spell disaster for years to come. The whole issue of a common patent law and court must be debated and discussed in detail,’ he said.

The CCBE, said that the new court should not be ‘rushed into a premature, unworkable and uncertain outcome’. Senior legal adviser Peter McNamee added: ‘The proposed court system will not meet the goals of being accessible and affordable, especially for SMEs. We are concerned that speed is now an overriding consideration, carrying with it the risk that users will refuse to accept it.’ He listed nine areas of ­concern, including funding, the languages to be used and the selection and training of judges.