Italy has ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement. It is the 12th member state of the Unitary Patent project to do so. The instrument of ratification, the formal final step in the procedure, was deposited with the EU Council on 10 February 2017. The two chambers of the Italian Parliament had approved the ratification bill…

No more than 15 to 60 seconds. That’s the time it will take to opt out a patent from the jurisdiction of the Unified Patent Court, once the so-called sunrise period of the Court has started on 1 September 2017. A piece of cake? Not at all. Before legal representatives or patent proprietors can file opt-outs…

The UK will ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) in March, most likely before the Brexit article 50 is triggered. German will be ready to ratify soon as well, but will delay the official deposit of its instrument of ratification with the EU Council, with a view to the Court starting its operations on…

Even if a way is found to keep the United Kingdom in the Unitary Patent system after the Brexit, it is hard to believe London can keep its seat of the central division of the Unified Patent Court. This is argued in an interview with Kluwer IP Law by Cesare Galli, president of the Italian…

Since the UK announced it wants to ratify the Unified Patent Court Agreement despite the Brexit vote (last week the new IP minister of the UK, Jo Johnson, repeated the announcement of his predecessor Baroness Neville-Rolfe), preparations for the system have restarted in full, despite the fact that a British membership brings about uncertainty. Prof….

The Preparatory Committee for the Unified Patent Court (UPC) expects the court to become operational in December of this year, with the Provisional Application Phase (PAP) starting by the end of spring 2017, probably in May. This has been announced on the committee’s website. According to the announcement, ‘the start of the sunrise-period for the…

Will 2017 be the year that the Unitary Patent system sees the light of day? A year ago the general expectation was for the system to fully launch this spring, with a provisional period starting late 2016. After the Brexit vote considerable delays were expected, but an announcement by the UK government late November led…

Germany has resumed preparations for the ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. A draft bill for the implementation of the UPCA was published on 9 December 2016 by Justice Minister Heiko Maas. Together with the UK, Germany is one of the two countries that still have to ratify the UPCA before the Unitary Patent system…

The UK signed the Protocol on Privileges and Immunities of the Unified Patent Court on 14 December 2016 in Brussels. It is an important step in the process that should lead to UK ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement. The UK still needs to pass national legislation, a so-called statutory instrument (SI), to enact…