The Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court provides a new type of European patent and a new system for litigating patents in Europe. It's the realisation of an ambition to unify European patents that dates back almost 50 years, we’re excited it has now arrived!

The unitary patent system realises and ambition that dates back to 1975, when legislation was drawn up to provide a single patent covering all member states of the then European Economic Community (the forerunner of the EU).  That legislation never entered force.  Now, 48 years later, the new European Patent with Unitary Effect (also known as the Unitary Patent or "UP") and its associated court system, the “UPC”, became a reality on 1 June 2023. 

Currently, Unitary Patents cover seventeen EU states including Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden with a single, indivisible patent.  (Future UPs will cover additional EU countries.). Applicants can now obtain a Unitary patent once their European patent application has been examined and granted by the EPO. A unitary patent is available provided that the EP grant date falls after the UPC/UP legislative package entered force on 1 June 2023.

Unitary patents are enforced and litigated at the newly created Unified Patent Court (UPC), which will have ‘central divisions’ in Paris, Munich (and later, Milan), and an appeals court in Luxembourg. In fact, the jurisdiction of the UPC also extends to ‘conventional’ European patents that have been ‘validated’ in one or more participating EU states. However, patentees can “opt-out” their conventional European patents from the jurisdiction of the UPC during a transitional period, which will last for the first seven years of the court’s existence, at least.

Now that the UPC/UP system is available, Mewburn Ellis can obtain unitary patents for our clients, manage the process of opting out their conventional European patents from the jurisdiction of the UPC (if this is desired) and handle litigation at the UPC.