Posts Tagged: "unitary patent"

By now, unless you live in a total IP blackout zone, you’ve heard about the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC). Your friends in Europe, particularly, have been insistent on informing you, whether you want to know or not, with daily (if not hourly) email blasts, since January of this year. But most of what they tell you misses the forest for the trees. Here’s why. Let’s begin at the beginning. Aside from your client telling you to, why do you file a patent application? The only answer is: it is a hedge as to the future. The reason for that is that you and they have no way of knowing at the time of filing whether this will be the “next big thing” or just another “thing”. You might say or even believe that filing an application is about “protection” or potential “revenue”. But it isn’t.

The long-awaited introduction of the Unitary Patent and UPC should provide much interest in 2023, with attention likely to focus on the early numbers of applications for unitary effect, as well as the number of European patents opted out and the volume and nature of cases brought before the Court. At the EPO, decisions are expected from the Enlarged Board of Appeal in Case G 2/21, which concerns plausibility and post-published evidence, and Cases G 1/22 and G 2/22, concerning entitlement to priority. Oral proceedings in G 2/21 were held on 24 November. And the UK Supreme Court should hear the DABUS case and deliver its judgment in 2023.

The European Union Unified Patent Court (UPC) announced this week that the court’s Sunrise Period will be delayed by two months. The Sunrise Period has a new planned opening date of March 1, 2023, with the entry into force of the UPC Agreement (UPCA) pushed to June 1, 2023. In an official announcement, Klaus Grabinski, President of the UPC Court of Appeal, and Johannes Karcher, Acting Chairman of the Administrative Committee, said, “the additional time is intended to allow future users to prepare themselves for the strong authentication which will be required to access the Case Management System (CMS) and to sign documents.”

The long-awaited EU Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC) looks likely to be launched in 2022, after Germany’s top court rejected two challenges to ratification on Friday, July 9. In its decision, the Federal Constitutional Court rejected both the applications for preliminary injunction directed against the Act of Approval to ratify the Agreement of February 19, 2013 on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA). (BVerfG, Beschluss des Zweiten Senats vom 23. Juni 2021- 2 BvR 2216/20 -, Rn. 1-81.)

With a “no-deal” Brexit set to take place this Friday and the Unitary Patent system set to take effect sometime this year, EU patent applicants who want protection in the UK should be aware of the many moving parts to consider. Patent applicants who wish to file for a European patent and receive patent protection in the United Kingdom (UK) should consider whether they want the European patent to have “unitary” effect and be mindful of the UK’s participation in the Unitary Patent system. The UK European Union membership referendum, known commonly as “Brexit,” took place on June 23, 2016. The referendum resulted in a majority of votes in favor of leaving the European Union (EU). A “no-deal” Brexit is set to occur on April 12, 2019 absent of a “new deal” between the UK and EU leaders or an extension.

There were 174,317 patent applications filed at the European Patent Office in 2018, according to figures in its Annual Report published today (March 12). That represents an increase of 4.6% on 2017, when there were 166,594 applications. The number of patents granted also increased. The EPO published 127,625 granted patents in 2018, up 21% on 2017. U.S. entities are once again the most prominent applicants at the EPO, accounting for 25% of all applications in 2018. The U.S. is followed by Germany (15%), Japan (13%), France (6%) and China (5%). Applications from Germany grew by 4.7%, which the EPO attributed to an upward trend in the automotive sector and related areas, such as sensors and other measuring devices.

Join Gene Quinn, Michael Fröhlich, and Tony Proctor for a frank discussion of the pros and cons of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court. This webinar will address: (1) What you need to know about the Unitary Patent and the UPC; (2) Pros and Cons of the Unitary Patent; (3) Pros and Cons of opting out of the UPC; and (4) Obtaining a German patent as a hedge against uncertainty.

One of the great aspects of the Unitary Patent is that it follows the normal EPO procedure up to grant. And indeed, the search and the examination processes will be precisely the same as those you’ve been used to with the current EP and PCT procedures, and will be performed by the same examiners. One of the strengths of the EPO is that we allocate examiners to applications according to their technical expertise, regardless of the filing route through which applications arrive. It will only be at the end of the procedure, when the application proceeds to grant, that applicants will have to indicate if they want to have a single Unitary Patent instead of a bundle of patents for individual member states, as is the case for the European patent. So it’s extremely straightforward, cost effective, and much simpler to administer post grant than the current European patent. My impression is that many U.S. applicants already understand the logic and advantages of this very well, sometimes even a little better than European applicants, as the geographical size and the GDP of the market covered by the Unitary Patent is very similar to that of the U.S. patent.

Effective June 11, 2017, the Office of the President of the Federal Republic of Germany has agreed to suspend the Presidential signature required for formal ratification of the UPC Agreement. This suspension will remain in place until the German Federal Constitutional Court (“Bundesverfassungsgericht”) has reached a decision in the ongoing expedited proceedings relating to an action (“Verfassungsbeschwerde”) challenging the ratification.

The sunrise period for opting out traditional European patents is planned to start on 1 September 2017. Since such opt-outs will now be done electronically through the UPC case management system, it will take less than a minute to opt out a patent and the opt-out will be on the register immediately… For pending patent applications that are close to grant, the applicants need to decide whether they want to apply for unitary effect and take the necessary preparations, including a request to the EPO not to publish the mention of the grant of the patent prior to 1 December 2017 and filing a request for unitary effect with the EPO during the sunrise period.

This decision will continue to have a significant effect on the IP/IT market which has been governed by so many EU Regulations and Directives in the past (albeit not exclusively) that intricately bound the UK to the EU. The UK will in due course enter a negotiation period during which laws will be amended and enacted and international agreements will be negotiated. Due to the required notice period, the actual exit date will not be before 2018. The exact fate of the UK is also still up for debate with many options including retaining membership of the EEA only, or joining EFTA, or having a customs-only arrangement with the EU. The implications of this Brexit are currently very uncertain and will, to a large extent, be determined by the model that would be adopted and the terms of any international agreements negotiated.

As is being widely reported in the general press, the UK has voted to exit the European Union. There are many questions about what this decision means to the global economy, but for the intellectual property systems at least, we see no significant changes in the short term.

As the UK indeed voted for Brexit, the Unitary Patent system will now have to be re-negotiated altogether. The Unitary Patent Regulation states that the Unitary Patent cannot start before the UPC Agreement has been ratified by 13 participating Member States, including the three Member States in which the highest number of European Patents had effect in 2011, i.e. France, Germany and the UK. That alone means that the Unitary Patent must be put on hold now the Brexit referendum has been approved. Indeed, as a non-member of the EU, the UK will not be able to further participate in the Unitary Patent. Without the UK, with its market size and its reputation for patent litigation, the Unitary Patent will lose substantial value.

On 23 June 2016, the British citizens will hold their referendum on the country’s membership in the European Union. Should they vote for the UK to leave the EU (the so-called ‘Brexit’), the new European unitary patent system is likely to collapse before it started… If the UK was to refuse to ratify the European Patent Court Treaty after the exit vote on June 23 2016, the Treaty would also need to be renegotiated so that UK ratification is no longer required for the Treaty’s entry into force. Without such renegotiation, this requirement would only cease to apply when the UK has in fact left the EU.