14 Jun Romania to Join Unitary Patent System on 1 September 2024
Romania will join the Unitary Patent system on 1 September 2024, becoming the 18th member state to ratify the Agreement on a Unified Patent Court (UPCA). Romania deposited its instrument of ratification on 31 May 2024. This accession comes a year after the UPCA initially came into force.
All European patents for which unitary effect is registered from 1 September 2024 will cover Romania, in addition to the other 17 states that already participate in the Unitary Patent system (Austria, Belgium, Bulgaria, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Malta, the Netherlands, Portugal, Slovenia and Sweden).
The extension of the territorial scope of the Unitary Patent to Romania will not apply retroactively to European patents whose unitary effect was registered before 1 September 1, 2024. For these European patents, the territorial scope of the Unitary Patent will continue to be formed by the 17 states that were part of the system when the UPCA came into force.
For more details, visit the Unified Patent Court website.
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