Today, 17 February 2023, Germany completed its ratification of the Unified Patent Court Agreement, as announced on the Unified Patent Court website. This step definitively confirms the dates set by the Unified Patent Court team for the beginning of the Sunrise period on 1 March 2023, and of the Unified Patent Court and Unitary Patent becoming fully operational on 1 June 2023.

The Unified Patent Court Agreement can enter into force when the three signatory countries with the highest number of European patents in force in 2012 (one of which is Germany), as well as 10 other signatory states, complete their ratification of the agreement. The last of those 13 ratifications was finalised today, almost precisely 10 years after the agreement was signed by participating states on 19 February 2013.

Everything now appears to be in place for the Unified Patent Court’s opening, except for the decision on which state should inherit the court’s central division originally assigned to the United Kingdom, which withdrew from the agreement after leaving the European Union. Italy has laid claim to hosting the central division in Milan.

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