Düsseldorf, June 17, 2024 – The Unified Patent Court (UPC) has already become an important part of the European IP system just one year after launching on June 1, 2023. According to information from the court itself, it has so far received 373 cases (as of end of May 2024).
Like the UPC, the unitary patent is also proving a success: the European Patent Office (EPO) reports that more than 28,000 requests for unitary effect have been filed and more than 27,500 unitary patents registered to date. The new system is especially popular in Europe: 64.2 percent of unitary patent holders are based in the 39 contracting states of the EPO. Smaller European companies and start-ups are particularly noteworthy among the applicants, registering 35.5 percent of all unitary patents in 2023 alone.
The law firm Cohausz & Florack (C&F), which is currently involved in more than 5 percent of all lawsuits at the UPC, is pleased with the development: “The UPC has got off to a promising start,” says Gottfried Schüll, patent attorney and partner at C&F. “The court’s wider reach, coupled with the established expertise of the national courts, is frequently of great significance, especially in large-scale proceedings conducted in Germany, one of the world’s leading patent court locations.”
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