The European Patent system is about to undergo a significant change, introducing the “Unitary Patent” and a new “Unified Patents Court”.
This short video provides more information on the unitary patent and how it will provide time and cost benefits to UK businesses.
A Unitary Patent is a European patent with unitary effect in a sub-set of the current European Patent Convention member states. A Unitary Patent provides uniform protection and equal effect in all the UP states. It may only be limited, transferred or revoked, or lapse, in respect of all the UP states. It may be licensed in respect of the whole or part of the territories of the UP states.
There are 17 EPC member states which are participating in the UP: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, and Sweden.
The UK is not participating in the UP, so the classic European patent validation process will still be followed for the UK.
The advantages of the UP include removal of national validation procedures and reduction of costs at EP grant, and reduced renewal fees (the UP has a single annual renewal fee for the 17 UP states – the UP renewal fee is equivalent to the total of the renewal fees in the four most popular UP states).
A potential disadvantage of the UP is that any patent litigation for infringement or validity of a UP will be handled centrally by a new Unified Patents Court (UPC), which has exclusive jurisdiction over UPs
The Unitary Patent (UP) is expected to come into operation on 1st June 2023.
