Will Poland join the Unitary Patent Court?

A community regulations package pertaining to the European patent with a unitary effect prepared by the European Commission was approved on December 11th, 2012 by the European Parliament.

As a result, patents granted by the European Patent Office will be applied in Poland without the necessity to translate them into Polish and our entrepreneurs could be sued for infringement in cases brought before the newly established European Patent Court based in Paris. It shall be expected that after the first year of the new system, the number of patents in force in Poland will grow by 60,000, so it will be doubled.

The negative impact on the Polish economy, which results from the establishment of the new patent system, have been discussed in an expert opinion prepared by Deloitte consulting Firm prepared on behalf of the Ministry of Economy.

The establishment of the European Patent with a unitary effect was a strategic goal of the Polish Presidency and Poland was one of the seven countries which initiated in December 2010 the enhanced cooperation procedure under which the whole package of new regulations was created.

The doubts raised in recent months about the possible effects of Poland’s participation in the Unitary European Patent System has probably become the reason why the Polish government delegation has suspended signing the Treaty final version on establishing the European Patent Court, which took place on February 28th, 2013 in Brussels. As a result, the ratification process of this Treaty has also been withheld by Poland.