IP Quick Tip: Pros and cons of requesting a Unitary Patent

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Of course, costs are a decisive factor in this decision. Most of you might have heard about the rule of thumb that a traditional European bundle patent is more expensive than a Unitary Patent if validation in four or more member states of the Unitary Patent System is intended.

While this is correct, this rule of thumb compares costs over the entire lifetime of a patent. In practice, however, a significant fraction of all patents is abandoned earlier.

What one should consider is that a European bundle patent provides flexibility in terms of costs throughout its lifetime. Costs may be cut by maintaining the patent in selected countries only, while abandoning it in others. With a Unitary Patent, this will not be possible. Either a Unitary Patent is maintained in full, or it is given up in full at some point in time.

Also, it may not always be the right approach to simply use the number of countries in which you validated your patents in the past for determining whether a Unitary Patent would be cheaper. In the past, the value of having a validated patent in some European countries may have been limited by the difficulties to enforce the patent in those countries via the respective national courts. With the Unified Patent Court, this limitation may no longer apply. It will be possible to quickly enforce patents in all countries. Therefore, it may be economically viable to validate a patent in more countries than in the past in view of the Unified Patent Court. And this may, in turn, favor the Unitary Patent over the traditional bundle patent.