The Unitary Patent System will provide the possibilty to get unified patent protection in up to 25 EU Member States by submitting a single request to the European Patent Office (EPO).

The launch of this system is managed by the Unitary Patent Court (UPC) Preparatory team, which has recently published the current version of the Implementation Roadmap. This Roadmap includes all the key activities and milestones of the UPC in the upcoming months. The Roadmap can be found here.

The roadmap indicates the start date of the sunrise period as January first 2023. The UPC Agreement is planned to enter into force on April 1st 2023, accordingly the court is expected to start receiving the first cases as of that date.

The Member States which have signed but not yet ratified the Unified Patent Court Agreement (UPCA) are Cyprus, Czech Republic, Greece, Hungary, Ireland, Romania, and Slovakia. Validations after grant will still be necessary for Spain, Poland, and Croatia, as they are not part of the Agreement.