The 2 main roles of the Unitary Patent System: Unitary Patent and Unitary Patent Court:

The difference between the “classic” European Patent System and the Unitary Patent System

The current system whereby an applicant who has been granted a patent by the European Patent Office (EPO) can only proceed with the entry into force procedure and subsequent legal proceedings in each country.

“Classic” European Patent system (EP) must be registered on a country-by-country basis after a common granting procedure, while Unitary Patents (UP) allow applicants to file a single patent application with the EPO that will take effect across 17 member nations simultaneously. It’s a great cost saving by avoiding costly translation works and expensive local firms. The annual renewal fees of the EP have to be paid per country whereas, in case of a UP, the fees can be settled for all participating nations in one go.

Although a single UP offers protection in multiple EU countries, however, a single Unified Patent Court (UPC) decision that invalidates a UP right will terminate those protections in those countries all at once. A "classic" EP may be costlier than a UP, but EP can only be invalidated through legal proceedings filed in individual countries. That means EP patent rights will stay in force in other EU countries where invalidation proceedings have not been initiated, and this will be a lot more expensive for a competitor to steal market shares by invalidating patent rights.

Please click here to learn more about the UPC Court fees.

UPC and UP system start date

The start of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) has confirmed to be postponed by two months from the original date of 1 April 2023 to 1 June 2023.
The delay of the enforcement date of the UPC also applies to the date when the patentee can start filing opt-out declarations from the UPC jurisdiction, and the date when the grant of the UP can begin.
The patentee may file an opt-out during the sunrise period (buffer period) 3 months in advance of the official launch date of the UPC. In addition, the sunrise period is now rescheduled from 1 January 2023 to 1 March 2023 as originally intended.

UPC: jurisdiction and opt-out

When the UPC comes into effect, the UPC will have exclusive competence over all EP designated to UPC participating EU member nations (current and future). The patentee may consider to opt-out to prevent their patent being drawn into the UPC system, and then withdrawing the opt-out when they consider that the UPC system looks more attractive for their purpose. Meanwhile, when considering to opt-out, the patentee should bear in mind that the UPC will have no jurisdiction over the EP that has opted-out its jurisdiction and the EP must be litigated nationally once opted-out. Moreover, once the opt-out is withdrawn, there is no further opportunity to opt-out.

If the patentee decided not to opt-out of the UPC system, their EP will be subject to both the UPC and national courts. The UPC has jurisdiction over all UP and opt-out is not available. The opt-out can only happen within the transitional period (7 years for now and may extend to 14 years) as long as the proceedings have not yet been brought to the UPC system. EP cannot be opted-out once the UPC seized of an action.