European or Unitary Patent: risks and opportunities

On June 1st, 2023 the new European Unitary Patent enters into force. This means that, upon grant of the European patent, the patent owner will be able to choose between a (classic) European Patent or a Unitary Patent.

The Unitary Patent brings a lot of opportunities, such as:

• no national validation costs;
• lower annual renewal fees;
• single legal proceeding before the Unified Patent Court (UPC) instead of various proceedings with the national courts;
• fast turnaround: ruling of the UPC expected within 18 months;
• etc.

However, patent owners should also take into account a number of risks, such as:

• lower costs / official taxes;
• risk of "central revocation" of a Unitary Patent with the UPC, which could invalidate the Unitary Patent for the 17 EU Member States that have ratified the new system;
• Co-ownership for all UP Member States;
• etc.

During a one hour webinar on Thursday, March 9 at 6pm CET / 5pm GMT / 12:00 noon Eastern / 9:00am Pacific, we will go into further details on each of the above topics, so that you can make the right choices for your (or your clients') patent portfolios right away.