After a very long and drawn-out process the Unitary patent system has eventually come into being, on June 1st, 2023. What this means is that a European patent which is granted can be validated in a single action with unitary effect in a large subset of the EU, namely:
Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Germany, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Sweden, and Slovenia.
This needs to be done within one month of EP patent grant.
For the life of the patent (20 years from the filing date), only a single renewal fee will be due, albeit a larger amount than for a single country validation.
This patent will be under the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court (UPC), a dedicated patents court which has been newly set up. This will make it a simpler and less expensive exercise for a competitor to attack a proprietor’s patent but does also provide a simpler and less expensive forum for enforcing patent rights.
Ireland is not yet part of the Unitary Patent system as a referendum is required. Also, of course non-EU states such as UK and Switzerland are also not part of this system and individual validation of patents is required in these states as before.
For those who do not wish to be under the jurisdiction of the UPC it is still possible to opt patents out from the UPC and rely on individual validations. For example, if the major market is, say, just UK, France, and Germany then it might make sense to validate individually in these three states and opt out of the UPC. Also, two major EU states, Spain and Poland are not part of the system.
These notes are general in nature and specific queries should be addressed to Weldon O’Brien Ltd.
Further Information
European Patent Office:
https://www.epo.org/applying/european/unitary/unitary-patent.html
Unified Patent Court:
