According to the Fifth Progress Report on the implementation of the unitary patent package, all the rules necessary for the implementation of Unitary Patent protection have been adopted and are already complete. However, the Unitary Patent system will come into effect only once the Unified Patent Court Agreement is ratified by thirteen participating Member States, including the three most active countries when it comes to patent validation, namely Germany, France and the United Kingdom. So far, twelve Member States have ratified it, including France, and ratification procedures are well advanced in Germany and the UK.
The unitary patent is a European patent with unitary effect, i.e. a patent that will provide uniform protection across the participating Member States on a one-stop-shop basis. The package also includes the setting up of a Unified Patent Court that will offer a single, specialised patent jurisdiction.
Source : © European Union, 2017 - EP