Activity on the UPC’s Case Management System (CMS) continues to accelerate, with the Court itself reporting “considerable pressure” on its systems as rightsholders move to opt out some of their cases. We’ve obtained data on this recent opt-out activity in the CMS, and provide some quickfire statistics here:

• Opt-out requests have been filed for almost 111,000 cases in under 11 weeks. We’re therefore seeing an acceleration in the number of opt-out requests being filed, though this remains small compared to the vast number of European patents and applications that could be opted out (with the EPO having granted almost 1,000,000 patents between 2013-2022).
• On 12th May 2023, around 14,000 opt-out requests were filed – more than the total number of requests that were filed in the entirety of March.
• The subject-matter classes with the most opt-out requests so far include computer technology (7.6%), electrical machinery (7.0%), medical technology (7.0%), digital communication (6.5%), and transport (5.9%) (IPC classes G06, H01, H02, H04, A61, B60).
• The subject-matter classes with the fewest opt-out requests so far include nanotechnology (0.07%), IT (0.5%), thermal processes (0.9%), and environmental technology (1.0%) (IPC classes B81, B82, G06, F24, F25, C02).

The UPC Registry also provides a list of over 3,000 patent attorneys and lawyers who have registered as UPC representatives, with most based in Germany, the UK, France and Italy.

Legal professionals and other stakeholders alike will continue to watch opt-out trends with much interest. This is an update to an article originally published 4th May 2023. Data used in this article are correct up to 11th May 2023 unless indicated otherwise.

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