Unified Patent Court: Ratification by Italy, entry into force for the end of 2017 ?

On February 10, 2017, Italy became the 12th member state ratifying the International Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPC).

Italy, who had initially expressed reservations regarding the project of a new European system for patents, composed of the Unitary Patent (UP) and the Unified Patent Court (UPC), now gives a strong message in ratifying the UPC agreement and we hope that this is an optimistic sign for a rapid entry into force of the UP and UPC.

In addition, the ratification process is underway in Germany with the draft legislation for ratification of the UPC agreement scheduled in the parliamentary agenda on 16 February 2017. It remains to be seen whether the United-Kingdom will also ratify the UPC agreement despite the Brexit vote as has been indicated by certain interested parties. Some confidences even indicate that the United-Kingdom might deposit their instruments of ratification by the beginning of March 2017.

This news aligns with the provisional calendar disclosed by the preparatory committee of the UPC following its last meeting in mid-January 2017.

Indeed, according to this calendar, the provisional application phase could start in May 2017 and the UPC – thus also the Unitary Patent – would enter into force in December 2017.

According to this provisional calendar, the sunrise-period offering the possibility to opt out specific European patent applications and European patents from the exclusive competence of the UPC would start in September 2017.

In this respect, we invite patent owners to already review their portfolios in order to determine which of their European patent applications and European patents should be opted out from the exclusive competence of the UPC, so that the corresponding opt-out requests can be filed during the sunrise-period and be applicable upon the entry into force of the UPC.

In light of these new systems that may be applicable at the end of 2017, the whole team at REGIMBEAU is at your disposal with advice on the best strategies to implement in order to optimize your patent portfolio.

We further remind you that REGIMBEAU has developed some tools for you to better understand the Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent:

• -The book: “Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court: Europe adopts new tools to promote innovation” – which will be soon available in English – provides an insight for European economic players on the strategic elements which constitute the Unitary Patent and the UPC.
• -The budget simulation tool, SIM’UP, accessible at www.unitary-patent-costs.eu, enables you to compare the post-grant costs (including validations and renewal fees) for European Patents in view of the forthcoming Unitary Patent system. The owner of a European Patent can now assess, in terms of cost, if there is an interest or not in choosing the unitary effect for countries usually protected, or whether it is preferable to use the classic national validations.