News: Awards and Rankings
Bulgaria joins the Unified Patent Court Agreement
Posted on June 8, 2016
Bulgaria deposited its instrument of ratification of the UPC Agreement with the General Secretariat of the Council of the EU on 3 June 2016. This is required for the ratification to have effect. Bulgaria is the 10th country to take this step and, apart from the UK and Germany (the remaining two of the three...
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Italy and Lithuania has begun the ratification process for UPCA
Posted on May 10, 2016
Both the Italian and Lithuanian governments have begun the process for ratifying the Unified Patent Court Agreement. In Italy the Council of Ministers have approved draft legislation, and the parliament is now about to approve the bill. Italy will most likely ratify later this year, and it is further expected that a local division will...
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Bulgaria about to ratify the Agreement
Posted on April 18, 2016
According to the latest news from the Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court, Bulgaria will ratify the Agreement at the end of April, bringing the total number of countries that have ratified up to 10. Also, in the Case Management System for the UPC, the city of Sofia has been uploaded as a division...
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No fee for requesting opt-out
Posted on March 1, 2016
The Preparatory Committee of the Unified Patent Court has recently published a new suggestion regarding the fee for opting out, in which the fee will be 0 EUR, instead of the previous suggestion of 80 EUR. The fee for requesting opt-out has been discussed for a while, and consultation responses have indicated that the fee...
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Germany begins the journey into the Unitary Patent system
Posted on February 18, 2016
Finally the news broke that Germany has started the ratification of the Agreement on a unified patent court and thus the Unitary Patent, by the publication of two law proposals by the German Federal Ministry of Justice (Bundesjustizministerium). The first proposal is to ratify the Unified Patent Court. The other one contains changes to the...
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United Kingdom moves closer to the Unified Patent Court
Posted on January 26, 2016
The UK government has published a draft Statutory Instrument (SI) and laid it before the Parliament. The changes moves the UK one step closer to the unitary patent and Unified Patent Court (UPC). The SI draft, entitled “The Patents (European Patent with Unitary Effect and Unified Patent Court) Order 2016”, will now pass through Parliament...
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Finland has joined the Unified Patent Court
Posted on January 25, 2016
Finland has now fully ratified the ‘Agreement on a Unified Patent Court’ by depositing its instrument of ratification. By ratifying the agreement it will be possible for an applicant to get protection through a unitary patent in Finland together with all the other countries that have ratified the unitary patent. The Unified Patent Court will...
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The Unitary Patent moves one step closer
Posted on December 16, 2015
Yesterday on 15 December 2015 the Select Committee, which represents the EU member states participating in the Unitary Patent (UP), formalized a series of agreements (comprising implementing rules, budgetary and financial rules, level and distribution of renewal fees between EPO and the participating member states) into a complete secondary legal framework. This means that the EPO...
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Unified Patent Court (UPC) one step closer to realization
Posted on October 6, 2015
The plans for the opening of the Unified Patent Court (UPC) are moving ahead. Last week, seven EU member states signed a protocol which clears the way for the UPC to start its work in late 2016 or early 2017. The protocol comprises legal and practical arrangements and will, among other things, permit hiring of...
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Next step in unifying the European patents
Posted on September 27, 2015
The Unitary Patent that is evolving for the European market has taken another step forward and Italy has initiated the process to join the UP as well. By doing this, Europe is now covering a market which is comparable to that of the United States counting the GDP. The Unitary Patent is a European patent...
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