Murgitroyd, the global intellectual property firm based in Glasgow, is to expand its Munich operation with a move to larger premises.

The firm will move in November to offices on Hackerbrücke, close to the European Patent Office (EPO), positioning Murgitroyd at the heart of the European patent protection process.

The move coincides with a critical phase in the establishment of the European unitary patent, which aims to boost the value of patent protection by making it cheaper and faster to enforce an EU-wide patent.

Currently, several key items in the draft legislation are at a critical stage of negotiation.

Graham Murnane, a Munich-based director at Murgitroyd, said clients stood to gain enormously if and when the unitary patent became EU law. "Most importantly they will be able to take legal action in their own local unitary patent court to stop Europe-wide infringement of their European patent," he said.

"This is in contrast to the present system of separate national patent applications, or a single European patent application which must be converted to separate national patents after grant, with separate infringement proceedings necessary in each country in order to enforce the patent across Europe."

If the new central patent court overcomes European Parliament objections to "loss of individual rights", the main court will be in Paris with divisions in Munich and London.

Jamie LeLiever, head of global sales and marketing, added: "We have taken additional office space which will give our clients the opportunity to use our offices for briefings when attending patent hearings or appeals at the EPO."

Last month, the group, chaired by Ian Murgitroyd and co-led by chief executive Keith Young, said that activity levels and business performance were high in the second half of its financial year to May 31.

The shares were up 2% yesterday to a five-month high of 375p.