Unitary Patent Coming to Europe

With the introduction of the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court (UPC), envisaged for 2016, Europe will have a single patent for 24 countries and a single court to enforce both the new Unitary Patent and traditional European patents. Patent protection is currently at the national level, although parallel to strictly national patents, there is a central system called the European Patent. However, under that system patents still need to be registered in each country and enforcement takes place in the national courts. But in the new Unitary Patent system, twenty-four EU Member States have joined forces to create a single patent covering their joint territory.