What US Lawyers Should Know as EU Unified Patent Court Looms (1)

There’s a big change brewing for patent practitioners in the new year: the opening of the long-awaited Unified Patent Court, a system designed to streamline intellectual property litigation across participating European Union member states.

The court, which is slated to go live June 1, offers patent owners in Europe an alternative to enforcing their IP individually in each country. On the upside, it gives patent holders the chance to assert and defend their technology across roughly two dozen countries. However, it also opens them up to a wide-ranging defeat if they lose.

As participation in the system will be voluntary, ...