Intellectual Property: A European Unitary Patent from “Spring 2023”.

From April 1, 2023, the new “Unified Patent Court” will be able to receive files. The implementation of this patent aims to simplify procedures for companies and reduce their costs.

The new “Unified Patent Court,” which will rule on infringement and validity of patents in Europe, will open its doors on April 1, 2023, and will be able to receive files according to a schedule published online. On October 6th, by the production team. While the EU tries to respond to the crisis by asserting its industrial sovereignty, creating a single European patent with a single jurisdiction would simplify procedures for businesses and reduce their costs. Currently, a patent is valid in one of the 38 states of the EPO (European Patent Office), except for the country of origin of the invention, and it must be verified in each country where you wish to protect the invention, which means 38 total verifications and the multiplication of costs.

With an exclusive patent, a company can protect its invention simultaneously in 17 member states, and eventually in 25 or all member states. Spain and Croatia have refused to join for now. Poland has accepted but not yet ratified the treaty. A study by the EPO and the EU Intellectual Property Office on Tuesday morning underlined the importance of patents, trademarks, designs and models, plant variety certificates, authorship or geographical indications to the European economy.

In 2022, 82 million European jobs, or almost 30% of the total, will be directly linked to the companies involved actively using intellectual property. The latter accounts for 47.1% of the GDP of the 27 EU member states and 80.1% of their exports, according to the study. In 2013, the economic impact of sectors using patents or other instruments of intellectual property was 28.6% of jobs, 46.2% of GDP and 76.7% of EU exports, according to the study. For France, industries that actively use intellectual property rights (IPR) represented a quarter of jobs and half of GDP (46.9%) between 2016 and 2019. It also shows that the salaries of companies that use IP are higher than others: in fact, the average weekly salary in Europe is 840 euros, compared to 597 for those who do not use IPRs, the study notes.

Sami Nemili with agencies / Les Inspirations Ego