Two examples from patent law show how bad the present situation is. Inventors have been able for some time to go to the European Patent Office in Munich and obtain a European patent for their invention. The inventor says which countries he wants the patent for, and the patent will then operate as a national patent in those countries. Here is a supposedly uniform law that should mean the same in every country subscribing the European Patent Convention. In practice, however, it does not.
National courts can still give inconsistent decisions.
It is still perfectly possible for the same act to infringe a patent in Germany but not the corresponding UK patent. It is equally possible for the patent to be held valid in Germany but invalid elsewhere in Europe, and this still happens. The German court said the second shaver functioned just like the patented shaver even though it used slightly different parts. The UK court interpreted the patent differently to say that it covered only exact imitations. So the shaver could be marketed in Europe but not in Germany.