The Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court will go ahead post-Brexit
The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has now entered the provisional application, or soft-start, phase following the ratification of agreements by a sufficient number of participating Member States. The UK’s withdrawal from the UPC agreement means the UK will not be involved in the new system and some amendments to the underlying international agreements may be required, although these are not expected to delay the start of the new system.
The UK’s exit from the EU will not affect our ability to continue to file and prosecute European patent applications, obtain classic European patents or UPs or to litigate in the new court. We will also be able to use the same team to handle the parallel litigation regarding the related UK patents.
We are prepared for the UP and UPC. We will be able to obtain UPs on behalf of our clients and our EU qualified lawyers and European patent attorneys have rights of audience in the new international court.
We suggest that all clients should begin preparing for the arrival of the UP and UPC now, with a view to being ready to use UPs and make UPC opt-out decisions once the system arrives. Our UP and UPC pages provide more information on this new system, including a brief summary of what to consider when making opt-out decisions.
Further resources can be found on our Brexit page.
