An announcement on the UPC website on 6 April 2022 confirms that "[I]t is a reasonable assessment that [the start of the UPC] will happen during the last quarter of 2022 or early 2023".
The start of the UPC's operations will be triggered by the entry into force of the UPC Agreement. The UPC Agreement will enter into force on the first day of the fourth month after the deposit of the German instrument of ratification. The announcement stated that: "This will happen when the Administrative Committee is confident that the Court is operational. The German deposit will also mark the start of the sunrise period during which it will be possible to opt out existing European patents from the jurisdiction of the Court". The timing of the start of operations of the Court depends on the progress of the preparatory work.
It would appear from this announcement that Germany will not deposit its instrument of ratification in anticipation of everything being ready within the lead time triggered by that deposit, but only once everything is ready: "when the Administrative Committee is confident that the Court is operational" (emphasis added).
The indication of the timing of the start of the sunrise opt-out period, immediately following deposit of Germany's instrument of ratification, is also helpful news, providing a slightly longer window than the 3 months previously referred to by the EPO (here) which said it was "planned to start three months before the UPC becomes operational". For more on opt-out see the Jurisdiction and opt-out section of our UPC & UP hub.
For a guide to the UPC and unitary patent, including litigation strategies and transactional and commercial considerations, see our series of feature articles published in PLC Magazine's March and April 2022 editions and shared in pdf form on our IP blog here.
Our fully integrated, market leading European patent litigation team is ready to advise on all aspects of the practical and strategic issues which you should be considering in preparation for the UPC – please contact us for further information - full contact details available on our UPC Hub here).
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