On March 1, the sunrise period proceeding the launch of the the Unified Patent Court scheduled for June 1, began. During this period, the holder of a European patent granted before the end of the transitional period may opt-out from the UPC jurisdiction.

This option is also available to the applicant who filed the application before the end of the transitional period and to the holder of the SPC issued for a product protected by a European patent.

 

We wrote about the institution of opt-out here.

Importantly, the opt-out can only be made through a special platform – Case Management System (CMS).
 
Unfortunately, we are frequently hearing complaints about the operation of the system. Its limited capacity makes it difficult — and in an increasing number of cases even impossible — to submit an opt-out effectively.

Last week, an official announcement was published on the UPC website addressing the problems and announcing planned steps to improve its operation.

We are closely monitoring the situation and will provide you with the latest information in this regard.

PS: The photo shows the sunset in San Vincenzo. We keep our fingers crossed for the unitary patent system and hope that the problems related to CMS do not mean that we have moved from the sunrise period to a completely different time of day.