On June 1st, 2023, the Unified Patent Court and the European Patent with unitary effect came into force.
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As you will recall, the European Patent with unitary effect is effective in all states which had ratified the relevant agreement at the time of registration of the unitary effect.
At the time of the entry into force of the agreement, only the 17 states of the European Union listed below had ratified it: Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy , Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden.
On May 31st 2024, an eighteenth state of the European Union, Romania, ratified the agreement; the ratification will come into force on September 1st 2024.
The European Patents with unitary effect for which the registration of the unitary effect will take place starting from September 1st 2024 (the so-called “second generation Unitary Patents”) will therefore be effective also in Romania; the European Patents with registration of the unitary effect prior to that date (so-called “first generation Unitary Patents”) will instead remain effective only in the 17 states listed above.
In order to facilitate access to protection also in Romania through the European Patent with unitary effect, The European Patent Office has announced that it will accept requests for delay of the registration of the unitary effect, for postponing the registration starting from September 1st 2024.
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