In its welcome message at the conference in Brussels on the Unitary Patent system, James Nurton, moderator of today’s event, shows a slide announcing that the new system, will start on April 1, 2023 with 17 participating EU Member States*. While we are still waiting for the exact date of ratification of the UPC agreement by Germany, the April 1, 2023 start date seems thus now (almost) certain.
As you may have heard, 2022 – 2023 will become a time for important changes for the European patent system. As these changes will also affect existing European Patents and European Patent Applications (European Patent Rights), we feel it is important we inform you on these changes.
Thanks to progress in its ratification, the UPCA is approaching its entry into force in the following 17 EU Contracting Member States: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden.
The Provisional Application Phase (PAP) of the UPCA has already started. Once the preparations are sufficiently completed, Germany will ratify the UPCA, which will trigger the start of the 3 to 4 month sunrise period, preceding actual entry into effect of the UPC, which will likely occur early 2023.
Finally, after many years of difficulties, the combined Unitary Patent (UP) and Unified Patent Court (UPC) project is about to become a reality.
The announcement by Germany of its ratification of the Protocol on Provisional Application (PPA) in August 2021, along with the subsequent deposit of the PPA ratification instrument in September 2021, has marked an important milestone towards entry into force. What stood in the way was the needed ratification of the PPA by one more Member State which is no longer the case and, ultimately, the final stages towards entry into force can be underway.
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