Background to the UPC The European Unitary Patent is intended to provide a further and more efficient option for enforcement of patent rights across the European Union. It is based on the European patent system which is overseen by the European Patent Organisation...
There has been much discussion over the past few years on the effect of Brexit on intellectual property rights within the UK. The precise outcomes were, for a long time, unknown due to the uncertainty regarding the type of Brexit that would be delivered. It is now...
Currently, the cost of validating a European patent in multiple European jurisdictions can be prohibitive and a prudent Patentee may have to select a subset of EPO countries to protect their invention in. In contrast, the unitary patent offers the advantages of wider...
Patents, Supplementary Protection Certificates (SPCs) and the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) Trade Marks and Designs Copyright Exhaustion of Rights Please click on one of the hyperlinks above to go to the particular guidance note. The overarching intention of the...
At the beginning of 2017 the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court thought that it would be likely that the systems of the UPC would begin provisional operation before summer 2017 in advance of the UPC agreement coming into force later that year. It...
Introduction The European (EP) patent landscape is on the verge of the greatest change since the European Patent Convention entered into force in 1977 – the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) is about to open! A question mark over the involvement of the UK within the UPC...
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