Unified Patent Court Procedure

Forty years after the first discussions began with a view to creating a single European patent, 25 EU Member States (with the exception of Italy, Spain and Croatia) approved three instruments creating a European Patent with unitary effect. One of the instruments is the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court, signed on 19 February 2013. The Agreement provides for a ‘Unified Patent Court’ (UPC) as a single court consisting of a Court of First Instance and a Court of Appeal. The court will have exclusive jurisdiction both in infringement and revocation proceedings. By this means it is intended that it will provide a less complex and less expensive alternative to the current situation where patent cases have to be tried in each EU Member State separately.

• Overview
• Infringement and defences
• Proceedings and the UPC