The unitary patent put the Unified Court (TU) into operation on the same day June 1 on 2023, that it came into force.
Competitors active in litigation have initiated the first patent revocation and infringement actions with unitary effect in the Unified Patent Court (UPC).
The first invalidity actions before the UPC concern all technological sectors:
Revocation: patent EP3666797 ” ANTYGEN-BINDING PROTEINS TO PROPROTEIN CONVERTASE SUBTYLISIN KEXIN TYPE 9 (PCSK9)”; patent EP3056563: “METHOD OF PRODUCTION OF RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIAL CELLS“; patent EP3056564: ” METHOD FOR PURIFICATION OF RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIAL CELLS“.
Infringement: patent EP3375337: “SANITATION BATH TUB DEVICE”; patent EP3795501: “A LOAD HANDLING DEVICE FOR RETRIEVING UNITS FROM A STORAGE SYSTEM”; patent EP2628464: “PROSTHETIC VALVE“; patent EP4108782: “ COMPOSITIONS AND METHODS FOR ANALYTIC DETECTION“; patent EP1612910: ” ON-BOARD POWER SUPPLY MONITOR AND POWER CONTROL SYSTEM”; patent EP2628233: “POWER TRANSMITTER AND POWER RECEIVER FOR AN INDUCTIVE POWER SYSTEM” and patent EP2867997: ” WIRELESS INDUCTIVE POWER TRANSFER”.
Spain is part of the European Patent Convention (EPC) and the European Union (EU) but does not participate in the patent with unitary effect and, nevertheless, this can be an advantage. The patent is vital to the business and its invalidity jeopardizes the business.
Validation in Spain can protect the holder from possible invalidity actions that take place in the Unified Patent Court (UPC). Such actions do not affect validation in Spain, while it does affect all participating EU countries that have ratified the unitary system, with the unitary validation route.
In fact, the most recent EPO statistics clearly indicate that a large percentage of recently granted EP holders are using the traditional validation way. This may be because their territory of interest is in 3, 4 or 5 contracting states, not getting any clear financial benefit from the unitary effect, or because they want to avoid the jurisdiction of the Unitary Patent Court, during the transition period.
Analyzing the validations in Spain for the first half of 2023, more than 7,000 European patents have been validated in all technological sectors: Chemistry (2,593), Electrical Engineering (1,515), Mechanical Engineering (2,448), Instruments: Medical Technology, Control, Optics , Measurement (1,537), and others such as Civil Engineering, Consumer goods, Furniture, Games (824) with the advantages mentioned above.
Therefore, having protection in Spain, by validating in Spain, can be key to business and even more so with the entry into force of the unitary patent, either because the traditional validation route is followed or because even choosing the unitary validation route protection in Spain is not affected by the competence of the UPC.
Below is a sample of the 30 companies with the highest number of validations in Spain (>7,000 Validations during the 1st semester of 2023).
Article by Sònia Girona.
