Updates on Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court Utilization in Europe – Part 1April 4, 2025

If you have sought international patent protection in the last two years, you have likely received information about Unitary Patents and the Unified Patent Court in Europe. If not, let me introduce you to the Unitary Patent and the Unified Patent Court.

The Unitary Patent became an option for validations of a European patent upon grant as of June 1, 2023 through the European Patent Office (EPO). As of this date, the Unified Patent Court was also created. These are both intended to streamline patent validations and enforcements to a single European patent with a single court for a majority of the European Union (EU), to provide cost and administrative savings and efficiencies. The Unitary Patent is an option (not a requirement) to replace the national validation process throughout Europe for participating countries. Similarly, the Unified Patent Court aims to provide pan-European patent litigation for participating member states through a single action.

Updated information on the utilization of the Unitary Patent and Unified Patent Court will be addressed in a two-part series. In this first part, I will address the Unitary Patent.

Obtaining a Unitary Patent

The Unitary Patent is a validation option for a granted European patent. Although the EPO examines and grants a patent, there has always been a post grant requirement to validate the European patent on a country-by-country basis. This has required a patent owner to choose which European countries within which it wants the patent to take effect. This new tool permits a European patent to take ‘unitary effect’ inallparticipating EU Member States (with the ultimate goal to include all 25 states). There are currently 18 countries included in the Unitary Patent, including: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, and Sweden.  As this number will change over time, a Unitary Patent is valid in the participating EU member states in effect at the time of the patent issuance.

Notably, the United Kingdom will not be able to participate in the Unitary Patent as it is no longer part of the European Union (and is therefore not included in the 25 states that are eventually expected to be part of the Unitary Patent). At this time, Spain and a few other EU countries are not yet participating. As a result, a Unitary Patent may still not provide a patent owner with the full scope of rights desired across Europe. In such instances, it may be necessary to also file conventional validations in countries not included in the Unitary Patent, such as the United Kingdom or Spain. A map of the countries currently member states for the Unitary Patent is shown below (reproduced from the EPO). 

Whether it is in your best interest to utilize the Unitary Patent largely depends on the scope of geographical patent protection desired, compared to the cost to individually file using the conventional country-by-country validation method. There are straightforward cost calculation tools available to provide comparison costs. Other than cost, the strategic benefit of enforcement versus risk of losing patent protection in a single invalidity action (see more in the next post on the Unified Patent Court), is a key strategic issue to consider.

The process of applying for a Unitary Patent is straightforward and coordinated by European patent counsel. After a European patent grants, a “request for unitary effect” is filed within one month of the mention of the grant, along with payment of fees and filing a translation into another language (e.g. French or German). Thereafter, a single renewal is paid to the EPO (in euros) for all participating member states – replacing the more burdensome country-by-country payment of annual fees. The renewal fees for a Unitary Patent have been set to approximate the cost of validating in the four most common European countries (Germany, France, the Netherlands, and Italy). This is where the economic benefit comes into play – the more countries where you would have validated individually, the  greater the cost savings will be through use of a Unitary Patent.

Additional information on the Unitary Patent is available from the EPO here https://www.epo.org/en/applying/european/unitary/unitary-patent.

Statistics for First (Nearly) Two Years

The EPO maintains an active dashboard providing statistics of utilization of the Unitary Patent – according to measurements such as overall usage, type of patent applicants (both entity size, type of organization, geographic origin, etc.), technology sectors, and more. The statistics can also be sorted according to years (2023, 2024, 2025, or cumulative to date). The dashboard is available here https://www.epo.org/en/about-us/statistics/statistics-centre#/unitary-patent.

Since inception, almost 50,000 Unitary Patents have been granted. In 2023 there was a 17.5% uptake rate (i.e. percent of granted European patents for which unitary effect was requested), in 2024 this increased to 24%, and cumulative to date there has been 22% uptake rate for the Unitary Patent. The current usage stats through current through March 12, 2025 are shown below from the dashboard. Not surprisingly, the use of the Unitary Patent has been more significant by European patent owners compared to the rest of the world.

The usage of the Unitary Patent according to types of technology shows that engineering fields (including mechanical and electrical) are using the Unitary Patent more than biotechnology, pharmaceutical and various chemical technologies. Again, the dashboard provides an interactive mapping of the 35 technology fields defined by the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the percentage of European patents in these fields that have utilized the Unitary Patent.  

Jill Link is a Partner, Patent Attorney and oversees the foreign department of McKee, Voorhees & Sease, PLC (MVS).  For additional information please visit www.ipmvs.com or contact Jill directly via email at jill.link@ipmvs.com. MVS attorneys and agents regularly manage international patent portfolios including protections throughout Europe.  Please seek consultation for specific inquiries as this publication provides overview data only and does not provide legal advice.