Battistelli, "ready to deliver the unitary patent"


The European Patent Office (EPO) appears to have completed all rules surrounding the unitary patent. According to the EPO they formalized: implementing rules, budgetary and financial rules, the level of the renewal fees and the rules concerning the distribution of the renewal fees between the EPO and the participating member states.

Benoît Battistelli president of the EPO said, "We are now legally, technically and operationally ready to deliver the unitary patent."

In the unitary patent system the EPO will be responsible for granting unitary patents. The granting of unitary patents is a new task that comes in addition to their present task of granting European patents. A key difference between the current European patents and unitary patents is that a European patent needs to be maintained separately for each country in which patent protection is desired, but a unitary patent has a fixed list of countries in which it is valid. The EPO will also administrate the unitary patent after its grant and collect and distribute the renewal fees for the unitary patent.

That the EPO's completed its preparations is of course good news for the unitary patent, but this was not one of the legal roadblocks. There still remains the necessity of national ratifications of the unified patent court; in particular the UK's and Germany's ratification.

Photo "Another Tough Puzzle, solved" by ToddonFlickr obtained via Flickr  under a  CC-By license