The European patent with unitary effect, UP for short, is coming – and with it the Unified Patent Court (UPC). We’ll support you in all related matters and show you how you can stay innovative and capitalize on your IP rights at European level. You can also follow our UPC blog.
Should court proceedings concerning your existing EPs be heard before the UPC or, through an opt-out in a transitional period, continue to be heard before the established – in particular the German – courts? When should such an opt-out be declared? What role does the “sunrise period” before the launch of the UP and UPC play here?
Does the UP replace the splitting of an EP into national bundle patents? With the UP’s protective effect extending to a population of well over 300 million in the member states, the costs of maintaining it are substantially lower than before. Does this mean that in the future the UP will be in the same league as, for example, US, CN, and JP patents in terms of application strategy? Should you add bundle patents in the non-member states, e.g. United Kingdom, Spain, or Poland, to the UP? Should a UP be combined with a national German patent in parallel? What role is played by the central infringement and nullity proceedings before the UPC, which can be used to obtain judgments against patent infringers for all member states, but also to revoke the patent for all these states simultaneously? When are the decisions on the appropriate adaptation of patent application strategies due?
