June 1st, 2023 marks a landslide in the world of intellectual property rights with the European patent with Unitary effect!
Before that date, there was only the European patent application. Once the patent was granted, you had to validate it in every single country in Europe where you actually wanted a patent.
© EPO
Now you can have a unitary patent that is at once valid in 17 European countries!
The 17 states which already ratified the Agreements and participate in the Unitary Patent are: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia, Sweden.
Pros
- 1 unitary patent, 1 procedure in case of problems, before 1 European court
- The 17 countries together are much cheaper than paying each of the 17 separately
- Time-saving simplified procedure
Cons
- At present: only 17 countries participate in the Unitary Patent
- Major textile producing, importing, and/or exporting countries, such as the United Kingdom, Spain, and Turkey are missing!
- It remains to be seen how the new system will behave (e.g. in relation to decisions of the dedicated court); there are no precedents yet.
Centexbel is pleased to announce that our innovation that won the Techtextil Innovation Award 2022, a PLA dispersion for textile coatings, has recently been approved as a European Unitary Patent