Law - Open Access Books

For over 50 years, the Quarterly Journal has been dedicated to presenting materials relating to intellectual property matters and is published four times per year. Editorial Board members are selected based upon demonstrated interest and experience, and student staff members are selected from the students of the GWU Law School.

On June 1st, 2023, the Unified Patent Court (UPC) commenced operations in Europe. This development is of major significance to the international patent world, as it establishes a single patent right for the majority of EU member states, along with the court system required to enforce it.

The implementation of the UPC, as well as the entry into force of the so-called Patent Package which sets forth the accompanying substantive and procedural law, crowns a 50-year period of efforts to harmonize patent law in Europe. While its original ambition of covering the EU in its entirety has not been achieved (so far), UPC and Patent Package constitute a major step forward in facilitating international patent protection and enforcement.

This article starts by describing the background of the UPC, along with an overview of the history and structure of the European Unitary Patent system as a whole and a discussion of the underlying Patent Package. We examine its organizational integration, legal classification, evolution and structure, as well as the UPC’s relationship to the European Court of Justice (ECJ), its jurisdiction and its Rules of Procedure (RoP). Next, the article examines several distinctive features of the UPC, including opting-out from its jurisdiction, bifurcation, injunctions, and the Court’s advances in digitization. The final segment provides a reflection on the Court’s stance vis-à-vis innovation. We ask whether the Court will view patents, narrowly, as a mere technical tool that grants an inventor market power, or alternatively, more comprehensively, as a property right, integrated into the overall legal and economic framework. A preponderance of large portfolio holders as litigants in the court, might provide a truncated view of the innovation ecosystem. We therefore consider whether smaller innovators might be reluctant to make use of the Court and how this situation can be remedied if the Court makes use of the interpretative latitude conferred by the Patent Package.