HAPPY CINCO DE MAYO!
Just when we thought it couldn’t get any better than World IP Day, along comes Cinco De Mayo, the Kentucky Derby, and the Miami Grand Prix. None of this has anything to do with Intellectual Property, but luckily, we get to make the rules.
What? You want some IP content? Ok, let’s look deeper into the Unitary Patent (from a financial perspective). It will be here in less than a month!
Unitary Patent Applications
Pop Quiz: Are Unitary applications more expensive than EP applications?
Answer: It’s a trick question – There is no Unitary Patent application.
Before a Unitary Patent can be registered by the EPO, the applicant must first obtain a European patent.
A European patent application must, therefore, be filed and processed under the EPC in the same way as today.
Where things start to get interesting from a cost perspective with the Unitary patent is the elimination of the translation and validation costs associated with a traditional EP patent, which can decrease costs substantially (there is a lot more to consider than just cost; talk to an EU patent attorney for advice.)
unitary patent maintenance
With a traditional EP patent, you pay maintenance fees to all the validated jurisdictions, and, as IP owners know, this can get expensive. The Unitary approach is generally cheaper if you typically validate in several countries. What are the maintenance costs? We’re glad you asked:
When you go the Unitary route, you’ll pay maintenance fees to the EPO, compared to the traditional validation model, where maintenance fees are paid to each national country.
