The European Union is a political economic union of 27 member states. 17 of these will initially be covered by the Unitary Patent. Of the remaining ten, eight (Ireland, Poland, The Check Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Rumania, Greece and Cyprus) are currently in ratification procedures for a variety of reasons. Croatia and Spain are not expected to join.
When the cited eight countries join the UP (probably not all at the same time) these jurisdictions will be added to the original 17free of charge and the costs for maintenance fees will remain unchanged. To the original EPO gift to the patent holder of € 9.500,- per patent, another €6.217,- will be added for every patent. Bringing the total savings on a standard-length Unitary Patent to approx. € 16K,once 25 of currently 27 EU countries have joined the UP/UPC system.
Of course, the start of the UP/UPC has just been delayed from April 1 to June 1., as have savings.
Currently technical and legal issues are under heavy debate by mainly legal experts, analyzing and scrutinizing the status quo from a variety of angles. Consumers have had opinions from “all in” to “this will never work”. Sofar we are not aware of any dramatic shifts in consumer acceptance of the new system. Finally, while there are no official reactions to the delay from any of the member states European Union regardless of their UP/UPC status, opponents are more likely to feed of this than supporters.
While we will take a closer look at European Patent Convention members and “allies” in our next report, we will continue to comment on future developments.
